


Na Goshi

by abundantlyqueer



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-19
Updated: 2005-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:57:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abundantlyqueer/pseuds/abundantlyqueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>WARNING: this is not the usual AQ product. noncon. there's no violence or overt complusion, but the implication is that elijah has been kidnapped and is being kept drugged and bound. i swear, it's part of the plot. normal service will resume ... at some point. i hope.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. The Lotus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dracunculus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dracunculus).



> WARNING: this is not the usual AQ product. noncon. there's no violence or overt complusion, but the implication is that elijah has been kidnapped and is being kept drugged and bound. i swear, it's part of the plot. normal service will resume ... at some point. i hope.

_Hong Kong, present day._

The morning is cold and dull, gray mist veiling the red maples in Viggo's garden. The white-paper paneled screens of the main room have been pushed aside despite the chill, and Viggo stands on the threshold staring out.

He is barefoot; the hems and knees of his blue jeans are ragged. His black cashmere sweater drapes on his lean frame, and his fair brown hair hangs around his face.

"Bring him to me," he says out of the silence.

Billy, standing behind Viggo, licks his lips nervously.

"I could - "

"I don't want you, little fox," Viggo rasps quietly. "Bring me the boy."

Billy's eyes flick closed for just a second, then he ducks his head and moves away.

While Billy's gone, Viggo slides one of the screen panels closed, though he leaves the other open. He crosses to the large bed with its rumpled white sheets and hard square pillows. He strips his sweater off, tossing it aside; he's bare-chested underneath. He tips his head from side to side slowly, his face twitching in satisfaction as the bones of his neck crunch more sweetly into place.

"Here he is," Billy says flatly, ushering someone else through the interior door.

Elijah takes a couple of steps into the room and then stops, frowning as he looks around carefully.

He's barefoot too, wearing buff-colored cord jeans and a shabby gray sweater. He holds his arms folded across his chest, with his shoulders hunched and his hands tucked into the ends of his sleeves.

His frown deepens as his glance comes to rest on Viggo, who approaches him slowly, one hand idling up and down on the smooth pelt of black hair covering his own belly.

"Elijah," Viggo says, coming to a stop less than an arm's reach away.

Elijah's breath flurries a little, but he doesn't answer.

"Let me look at you," Viggo says, taking hold of Elijah's chin and tipping his face upwards a little.

Elijah's hair is bed-messy, soft and tufted. His eyelids are faintly violet-pink, making his eyes even bluer by contrast. His mouth is flushed and slightly chapped; his upper lip and jaw are covered in downy hair.

Viggo exhales enough of a smile to uncover his narrow canines.

"Let's see some more," he says, catching hold of Elijah's wrist and pulling his arms out of their defensive arrangement.

Elijah's expression flickers, but he makes no effort to resist as Viggo bundles the lower edge of his sweater up and then strips it off over Elijah's head. Elijah's body curls against the cold, his pale skin shimmering with gooseflesh and his nipples pulling tight. The needle bruises up and down the inside of each of his slender arms look like translucent violet petals.

"Get on the bed," Viggo says.

Elijah blinks, and then he sways and steps forwards past Viggo. He climbs onto the bed and sits back on his heels. Billy, still in the doorway, makes a tiny pained sound low in his throat.

Viggo turns his head fractionally, his smile sharpening.

"You can stay and watch if you like, little fox."

Billy hisses in a deep breath, his small curved lips pulling back from his teeth. He shifts.

Viggo follows Elijah to the bed.

"Lie down."

Elijah obeys, though his face tightens when his already chilled skin contacts the icy sheets.

Viggo crawls onto the bed, straddling Elijah's legs. Elijah's narrow chest rises and falls slowly. Viggo leans forward, taking hold of Elijah's wrists and lifting them in his hands. He thumbs appreciatively over the faint silvery-pink pressure marks encircling each slender bone.

"Billy's been making sure you behave yourself, I see," Viggo says. "Good."

He releases Elijah's hands, throwing them away from himself so that Elijah's arms fall above his head. Elijah's ribcage expands inside his thin white skin, his taut belly hollowing away inside the waist of his cords. Viggo pulls Elijah's fly buttons open; Elijah lifts his hips to let Viggo strip his cords down and then off him.

He is naked underneath, his cock lying small and soft in the hollow of his left hip, the velvety head hardly a shade pinker than the rest of his skin.

"Maybe we should make Billy have a turn today … when I'm good and done with you," Viggo says, throwing Elijah's jeans onto the floor.

Billy's sharp intake of breath makes Viggo grin and swing his head in that direction but by the time he's looking, Billy's already gone.

"Huhn. Well, all the more for me," Viggo smirks, turning his attention back to Elijah.

Viggo pulls a foil packet of lube out of his back pocket and tosses it onto the bed, then moves back to undo his own jeans and kick them off before returning to Elijah. Viggo's cock stands rigidly away from his body, the foreskin already pulled taut below the shiny purple head.

"On your side," Viggo says, though he splays one big hand behind Elijah's waist and shapes the motion with his touch as much as with his instruction.

Elijah rolls over so that he's facing away from Viggo, his uppermost thigh draw up with his knee bent, and his arms still thrown above his head.

Viggo tears the lube packet open with his teeth and nudges the open edge between the cheeks of Elijah's ass. Elijah's breath catches as Viggo tightens his fingers and cold gel fills the crevice around Elijah's hole, extinguishing the last scrap of warmth his body possesses.

Viggo sets the half-empty packet aside and hitches his hips in closer behind Elijah. He takes hold of his own cock, using the head to smear the lube around and then pushing until he finds the failure of resistance that marks the entrance to Elijah's body. Viggo pushes harder, his breath snapping out of his nostrils in frustration when Elijah tips away a little, not refusing but rather yielding too much to the shift of Viggo's bodyweight. Viggo grips Elijah's shoulder and pulls him back into place; Elijah's body splits and Viggo's cock slides into the tight fluttering heat.

Elijah's breath comes softly out between parted lips, like a sleeper shifting in a dream.

Viggo takes his bodyweight on one elbow, the other hand moving from Elijah's shoulder to cover the slight muscular swell of his chest, his pebbled nipple a delicate point of ice in the middle of Viggo's palm.

Viggo begins to thrust his hips, slowly but emphatically. Elijah's breath comes out in a short huff at each shove of Viggo's cock into his body. His eyelids flutter slightly, as if he can't decide whether to close them or not.

Viggo moves his hand again, palming Elijah's jaw and turning his head so that Viggo can cover Elijah's mouth with his own. The angle is awkward, the contact messy. The tendons of Elijah's neck pull taut, lifting like smooth cables under Viggo's fingers. Viggo pushes his tongue into Elijah's mouth, mimicking the ruthless ill-directed jabbing of his cock in Elijah's ass. Elijah makes a small muffled sound. Viggo lets go of his face, holding him to the kiss by the pressure of his own mouth, and reaches for Elijah's nipple again, pinching and pulling until he elicits another slightly more deliberate sound.

"That's right, come on," Viggo pants, breaking the spit-slippery connection of their mouths. "Wake up, sleeping beauty."

Elijah's cock is thickening a little, the head pulling smooth as it swells. Viggo digs another half-dozen strokes of his cock into Elijah's hole and then pulls out abruptly. Elijah frowns a little.

Viggo rearranges Elijah on his back, pushing his thighs up and apart, and yanking Elijah's behind into his lap so that Elijah's spine is lifted in a tender arch over Viggo's thighs and knees. This time, when Viggo pushes his cock into Elijah in one swift thrust, Elijah's eyes flutter wide and his voice catches in his throat.

Viggo leans across Elijah, coincidently driving his cock deep enough to force another shapeless sound from him, and retrieves the lube. He squeezes the rest out onto his palm and tosses the packet away. He reaches out, smothering the top of Elijah's cock in his hand.

Elijah winces, shivering at the coldness of the gel, yet grateful for the slickness of the contact between his cock and Viggo's hand. Viggo begins to rock slowly, his cock pushing in and up inside Elijah's hole, his hand pulling gently on the head of Elijah's half-hard cock.

Elijah's fingers twitch.

Viggo gradually increases the depth and speed of his thrusts, the pressure and pace of his touch. Elijah's breathing develops a rhythm of its own, a countercurrent to the repeated impact of Viggo's hips against the backs of his thighs.

Elijah pulls at the sheet under his hands.

"Oh," he says softly.

Viggo grins darkly. The slip between his hand and Elijah's hardening cock changes character a little, Elijah's own smearing secretions silkier and smoother than the commercial lubricant.

"That's good," Viggo says. "That's good."

Elijah's body begins to tense, arms stretching out over his head, and toes pointing and curling against the sharply cut muscles of Viggo's upper arms. Elijah moves his head from side to side, his brows gathering together anxiously. He licks over his lips and opens his mouth as if to say something.

Abruptly Viggo stops, pulling out again and spilling Elijah out of his lap.

Elijah makes a wordless noise of entreaty and struggles to sit up.

"You know what to do, don't you?" Viggo asks.

Elijah stares at him, something flickering behind his crystalline blue eyes.

Viggo lies down, stretching his legs out and wrapping his hand around the thick red shaft of his cock.

Elijah's eyelids flutter heavily; he crawls on his hands and knees to Viggo, up the length of Viggo's legs until he's straddling Viggo's thighs. Viggo's eyes narrow, shining dark blue in the cold white brightness of the room.

Elijah's breath shakes in and out of his open mouth as he takes hold of Viggo's cock just above Viggo's own grip, and guides it to his opening. He tips his head back, eyelids flickering faster than moths' wings as he drives himself slowly downwards onto the rigid shaft.

Viggo hisses out a smile of pleasure.

Elijah lifts his hand to his own mouth, palm cupped discreetly, and spits. He lets his hand drop to his cock, shuddering a little as he begins to work himself in his fist.

"Up and down, too," Viggo warns, taking hold of Elijah by the hipbones and guiding him.

Elijah tips his chin once in acknowledgement, and his slender white thighs flex as he raises himself a few inches up on Viggo's cock and then lets himself down again. Elijah's cock, already hard, swells further. The faintest flush of pink appears across the hairless skin below his collarbones, and in his cheeks. He's still shivering but no longer goose-bumped.

At first Viggo just lies still under Elijah, but as Elijah's breathing becomes increasingly harsh and his hand moves more quickly on his cock, Viggo brings his own legs up a little for leverage and starts to thrust himself up to meet each downward movement of Elijah's body. Elijah's thighs begin to shake. He can no longer control his weight on Viggo's cock, and Viggo spikes up into him so that Elijah rocks helplessly under the impact.

Elijah cries out, a harsh guttural sound, and his eyes seem to snap into focus.

"What – No," he says, somehow stilling though his body is being shaken by Viggo's thrusts and his hand is still moving quickly on his own cock.

Viggo glances down and sees that Elijah's balls are drawn up tight against the spread angle of his groin. Viggo lets go of Elijah's hips and takes hold of his nipples instead, pinching and twisting.

"No – oh," Elijah gasps, and then it's too late, his cock twitches in his grip and the thick strings of his come fall over his hand and onto Viggo's black-furred belly.

Elijah's breath sobs out as his body unravels. Viggo pushes him off, Elijah groaning as Viggo's still erect cock pulls free of his clinging flesh. Elijah lies down, his face contorted as if crying, folds one cold-reddened foot under the other, and tucks his hands between his thighs. His body quivers.

Viggo crawls over him, rolling him onto his back.

"What's the matter?" Viggo goads. "Didn't that scratch the itch?"

Elijah lets his head fall to the side so that he's looking Viggo in the face.

"More," he whispers. "I need more."

Viggo bites down on his own lip, half pinning his grin of delight into place. He pushes Elijah over onto his stomach and pulls him up onto his hands and knees. Viggo's cock goes in in a sweet slippery rush, and he doesn't bother to begin slowly but instead catches Elijah by the hips and yanks him back to meet the first savage jab, and then uses the momentum of Elijah's recoil to yank him back for the next one.

Elijah folds down onto his elbows, fingers scrabbling at the sheets, keening small sounds of desperation. Viggo amuses himself with angles and rhythms, his eyes half hooded as he savors the faint flutterings and tightenings of Elijah's body around him.

Elijah is whispering to himself, tiny pleadings and prayers. Viggo smiles, flexing his fingers on Elijah's hipbones hard enough to distract Elijah momentarily from the new crisis building in his already used body.

When Viggo eases his grip again, Elijah moans and stretches his arms out, his hands fisted so hard that his knuckles are bony-white. Viggo feels the tension gathering in Elijah's body, feels him wringing tight and then falling away again every time he's forced to empty his lungs.

"Oh God, oh God," Elijah sobs, his spine bowed until his shoulder blades stand out like wings under his pale skin and his hole spreads open around Viggo's cock and then there's a shudder going through Elijah from toes to tail to the top of his head.

Viggo pulls his cock out again. Elijah crumples, shaking and panting. Slowly he curls in on himself.

"More?" Viggo asks.

Elijah doesn't answer at first. He slowly turns his head. His eyes are wet, and absolutely rational.

"Who are you?" he says, his voice husky. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Viggo's smile curdles a little.

"I take it that means no, you don't want any more."

Viggo gets off the bed and picks up his jeans. He pulls them on, tucking his still rigid cock in and buttoning himself up.

"Billy," he calls.

Elijah struggles up onto one elbow.

"Please," he says, his voice a little stronger now. "Let me go. Do you want money? My family would give you money. My mom's - "

"I can't do that," Viggo cuts in, his eyebrows lifted in amusement. "I can't let you go, Elijah. That's not what I do. I don't let people go."

Elijah flinches, but he also covers it surprisingly well. He swallows uncomfortably, suddenly aware of the dozens of small points of pain inside his joints and along his bones. His head is beginning to pound.

Billy appears in the doorway, his eyes wide and dull, his small mouth drawn down at the corners.

"Take him away," Viggo says. "And in future, don't let him go so long between fixes. He's practically rational right now."

Billy nods and steps aside hastily as Viggo moves past him and leaves the room. Billy looks over at Elijah.

"Come on, let's get yeh cleaned up and some clothes on yeh before yeh freeze," Billy says, trying and almost succeeding in shaping his lips into a smile of reassurance.

"I hurt," Elijah says, his voice smaller and shakier.

His head dips, dropping between his hunched shoulders.

"Aye, well. I've got the goods for that, too," Billy sighs.


	2. The Narrow Path

_Hong Kong, present day._

By afternoon, the chill morning mist has resolved itself into a fine drizzling rain. The deserted paths of the Rin Shi Park shine slickly under streetlights that come on by three o'clock. Here and there an office worker, hunched under a fold-out umbrella, hurries back from a late lunch, using the park as a shortcut between city blocks.

The enclosure of the temple at the park's center is also almost empty. A dozen worshippers, mostly elderly women bundled up in thick overcoats and wearing clear plastic rain hats to protect their hair, bend and sway at the foot of the massive basalt statue of the bodhisattva. Along the chest-high ledge of the statue's base lies all the debris of devotion: bits of paper bearing written prayers, crumpled bank bills and scattered coins, photographs – some in frames, trinkets and jewelry and baby shoes, and splays of thin incense sticks smoldering dully into thin threads of smoke. Today, everything curls limply in the rain.

Off to one side, under the scant shelter of the temple's doorway, half a dozen monks in crimson red robes sit cross-legged on the ground, praying. Except for one, they are thin-limbed long-boned men with skin like amber. Their narrow skulls are shaded with black bristle; their faces are broad-cheeked and fine-chinned.

The monk sitting at one end of the row, however, is a wirily muscled European with closely cropped brown hair.

Dom rocks fractionally back and forth, his lips silently shaping the words of his prayer as he passes a strand of small plain wooden beads through his fingertips. Like all the monks, he wears his robes so that one shoulder and both arms are bare. Unlike his brethren, though, Dom displays pale broad shoulders lightly speckled with flakes of golden freckles, and a tattoo across the thick curve of muscle at the top of each arm.

A boy novice appears at Dominic's shoulder, holding a small lacquered bowl.

"Phra Dominic," the boy says quietly.

Dom's lips falter into stillness and the beads pause in his hands. He stops his small rocking motion and blinks his eyes back into focus. He looks up at the boy.

"Thank you, but I don't - "

"Dominic. It is time for you to stop," an older monk standing off to one side says gently.

Dom hesitates for just a second, then presses his lips together and nods. He stands, compelling his limbs to unfold smoothly and gracefully despite the stiffened chill locking his joints in position. He accepts the bowl with a deep bow of gratitude.

"Thank you."

Dom steps aside, allowing the novice to take his place in the prayer line, and takes a sip of the hot weak infusion of herbs in the bowl. His gaze wanders towards the enclosure gate, to where a single figure approaches along the straight central path that bisects the park. Unusually, the newcomer seems to possess both leisure (like the elderly ladies praying at the foot of the bodhisattva) and vigor (like the harried office workers hurrying along the other more meandering pathways).

Orlando wears a long black coat, hanging open over a thin black sweater and faded jeans despite the chill air and thin rain. The folds of his coat move liquidly around his long legs as he walks, bespeaking luxurious softness and great expense. Orlando's hair clusters in mist-jeweled curls around his temples and ears and the back of his coat collar. He is clean-shaven except for the sparse and silky growth on his upper lip and on the tip of his chin.

Dom frowns, taking another mouthful of his drink without really paying attention to what he's doing. He watches as Orlando comes up the front steps of the temple enclosure and crosses to the foot of the statue. Several of the old women praying glance at him; they draw away, moving aside before they continue their devotions. Dom's fair brows gather together into a tighter frown as he realizes that his brethren have stopped moving and murmuring.

Orlando starts to pick through the things on the ledge. He picks up and puts down several pieces of sodden paper, having read what remains legible of their smeared and staining texts. One he stuffs into the pocket of his coat. He gathers up the various twists and stacks of cash, pushing that into his pockets too, along with a heavy gold cigarette lighter from in front of a framed sepia photograph of a young man.

Dom starts forwards half a step, opening his mouth and drawing breath to protest.

At that precise moment, Orlando turns his head to look at Dom. Dom's words die unsounded in his throat, his whole awareness suddenly reduced to the dark stillness of Orlando's gaze.

Orlando holds Dom immobile for another endless second. Then, abruptly releasing him, he looks at the other monks. They bow, their bodies folding down over their crossed legs.

Orlando lifts his left hand to waist-height, palm pressed out and fingers extended straight up. His right hand dips to hip-level, cupped palm up with the tips of his thumb and middle finger brought delicately together.

Dom's flint gray gaze darts away from Orlando, up the rain-gleaming torso of the basalt bodhisattva, down its slender arms to its long tapered hands, each large enough to encompass a small child. The gesture is identical, down to the slightly crooked flex of the little finger on the left hand.

When Dom looks back, Orlando is bundling the rest of the cash from the offerings into his coat pockets. He shrugs his shoulders inside his coat and turns away again, retracing his steps across the enclosure. The old women rock fervently, tapping their fingers on the bridges of their noses as they pray.

Dom starts forward, dropping the lacquer bowl to the ground.

"Phra Dominic," the oldest monk says sharply.

Dom, already several yards away, turns on the spot and lifts his bare arms wide in a gesture of resignation.

"When the ascetics in the forest saw our lord Buddha," he grins, "they left off their mediations and asked him to teach them. Can I do less?"

He shrugs ruefully in answer to the appealing expressions of his brethren, but they do not say or do anything more to dissuade him, so he turns again and strides quickly after Orlando.

"Teach me," Dom says eagerly as soon as he's caught up with Orlando. "I am here, Master; teach me."

"What?" Orlando says, hesitating enough for Dom to circle around in front of him and cut off further progress.

"Teach me. Let me be your disciple."

"What is this?" Orlando mutters, his brows drawing together and carving a deep fold in his forehead.

"I know who you are," Dom insists, beaming. "You're him, right? You're the bodhisattva Gautama Na Goshi. Lotus Eyes."

Dom jerks his heavy-boned jaw upwards, indicating the statue behind Orlando.

"Ye've grown yer hair out," he goes on, "but it's you, right?"

"That statue is nine hundred years old," Orlando says, side-stepping Dom and walking on again.

"Yeah, so I figure that makes you – what? Nine hundred and twenty seven, give or take a coupla years," Dom says, hurrying after him.

"I'm not Chinese."

"Neither was he. The Dharma says he came from the West."

"That's generally taken to mean Tibet."

"No, I think it means – where? Kent? Sussex?"

"Canterbury," Orlando says.

"Canterbury," Dom repeats with a grin of satisfaction. "Canterbury, nine hundred years ago. _God_. You must have seen them building the cathedral."

Orlando stops walking and flashes Dom a look of surprise.

"Teach me," Dom implores.

"If I'm Na Goshi," Orlando says, "if I'm a bodhisattva, then why would I lie to you by denying it?"

Dom's expression crumples into confusion. Orlando hitches his eyebrows, and then walks on, leaving Dom standing where he is.

Dom looks back towards the temple. They've come far enough across the park that he can encompass the whole statue in one glance.

Dom stares at the statue's face, at its straight brows and long tapered eyes, the irises drilled out of the stone so that they appear as pools of deeper darkness in the black stone. He considers the long slender nose, with its quirked bend at the bridge, long considered to be a skillful artisan's accommodation to some flaw or weakness in the stone. He looks at the thin mouth with its narrow lips.

He turns and runs after Orlando again.

"You're testing me," he says. "Testing the strength of my belief. But you _will_ teach me, you _will_ let me follow you."

"Why are you so sure about that?" Orlando asks, halting in exasperation.

"You're a bodhisattva," Dom says gently. "You've been offered the release of Nirvana, and you've turned it down. You've chosen to live a life in this world, so that others can find the way through you."

Orlando looks at Dom. Dom chews on his own lip, his eyelids flickering up and down.

"Go home," Orlando says.

"I don't have a home," Dom says breezily. "I don't have a home, or a job, or a family. I own nothing but my robes and my prayer beads and my begging bowl."

They've come to the edge of the park, the grass and winding pathways stretching away behind them, the busy streets and glass-faced office buildings ahead of them.

"Well, don't expect me to pay for your coffee," Orlando says, stepping off the curb as the walk-light comes on.

"Eh?"

Orlando's already across the street and pushing into the steamy warmth of a Starbucks by the time Dom plunges into the traffic after him. Pedestrians step aside with respectful dips of their heads, which Dom sketchily returns. He goes into the coffee shop, dodging and weaving among the customers until he's next to Orlando at the counter.

"You can't sit in here unless you buy something," Orlando says, accepting his change from the server with a smile. "And how can you buy anything when you don't own any money?"

"Please, Phra," a young woman standing next to Dom says diffidently. "Will you do me the blessing of accepting … ?"

Dom glances down to see a crumpled bank note in her cupped palm. He smiles but shakes his head.

"I'm afraid I can't accept money," he explains. "I can only accept my food or drink for one meal at a time."

"Then, if I buy a coffee and offer it to you, you can accept that, yes?" the young woman persists.

"Yes," Dom grins.

"What would you like?" she asks, her black eyes snapping with delight.

"Whatever you would like to give me would be wonderful," Dom says.

"He'll have a tall decaf soy latte," Orlando says from behind Dom's shoulder.

Dom's benefactor looks to Dom for confirmation. Dom nods energetically and watches with wide-eyed anticipation as his drink is prepared and paid for, and then handed over with much mutual bowing and blessing and smiling. Orlando takes his time adding sugar and cinnamon and chocolate powder to his coffee, so that he's only made it as far as the door when Dom's recovering from the first soul-melting sip.

"Aren't we staying?" Dom asks, hurrying after him.

"They don't let you smoke in there," Orlando says, licking milk foam off his upper lip.

"But you said I couldn't – huh," Dom says, as the exact substance of Orlando's statement comes back to him. "I just assumed you meant – I heard what I thought you meant, not what you actually said. You're trying to teach me to hear what's really there - "

Orlando pats down his pockets and extracts a battered cigarette pack. One-handed he thumbs the lid up and lifts the entire pack to his mouth, using his pursed lips to extract a single cigarette. He tips the pack towards Dom and raises his eyebrows questioningly.

"Um – oh – no, no thank you," Dom says.

Orlando returns the pack to his pocket and takes out the gold lighter he took from the offerings at the base of the temple statue. He shakes it, flicks the flint a couple of times, and smiles when the flame jumps up steady and strong. He lights up, tucks the lighter away again, and extracts the cigarette from between his lips.

"What do you think I can teach you?" he asks, the words coming as a flurry of white smoke.

"Everything," Dom says at once. "Everything there is to - " he hesitates, recollecting himself, and says more calmly, "dharma. I believe you can teach me dharma."

Orlando takes another sip of his coffee and another drag on his cigarette. His dark gaze slides away from Dom.

"Past, present, future," Orlando says.

"It's all one," Dom answers at once. "All knowable."

Orlando looks at him again. Dom straightens a little under his scrutiny, and his gray eyes never waiver from Orlando's face.

Something seems to click over inside Orlando's eyes. He switches his coffee cup to the hand that's already holding his cigarette, and moves closer to Dom. Dom's eyes flare wider, but he stands his ground.

"Kiss me," Orlando says matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"Kiss me. Put your mouth on my mouth."

"Yeah, I know what a kiss is. I just - "

"Do you want to know or don't you?"

" _Yes_ ," Dom says fiercely.

He jerks forwards, the hand not occupied with his coffee closing on the collar of Orlando's coat, pulling him forward and down to Dom's level. Dom's small mouth bumps and then blurs against Orlando's. Dom squeezes his eyes shut and blushes to the tips of his ears. For a second they're both off balance and the connection between their mouths is tenuous, then Orlando steadies and Dom stills and there's a moment when –

Orlando pulls back, eyebrows arched.

"Okay, the tongue was kind of excessive," he says.

"I just – I want you to know that I – I won't hold back," Dom says in a breathless rush. "I've thrown myself into this with my whole heart. I've given up everything for the Dharma, and I'll give up more, if I'm let."

Orlando's expression chills.

"Go back to the temple," he says evenly.

He starts walking.

"What? No," Dom says, moving after him. "What did you see – when you kissed me? What did you see?"

 _Gray eyes round with fear, heart pumping thick red life, a flash of white in the long green grass, and nothing._

"Don't you want to go back to the temple, live a long life, and be the first master of your monastery to be born in Manchester?" Orlando asks.

"Or what?" Dom demands, dodging around until Orlando's forced to a halt, forced to look Dom in the face. "Go back to the temple, or what's the other choice?"

Orlando takes a step closer. Dom's bravado softens, his eyes darkening with honest entreaty. Orlando takes another half step, raising his empty hand to Dom's face, his fingers curling back over Dom's right ear as if to tuck back a nonexistent lock of hair.

"If you follow me, you will lose your heart, and then your life," Orlando says.

For a second or so Dom can only stare open-mouthed.

Orlando steps back, lifting his cigarette to his lips and frowning a little. He turns and walks away. For long seconds more Dom watches him go.

"Hey!" Dom shouts suddenly, running after Orlando yet again. "Hey! Wait up."

Orlando doesn't slow, so Dom strides out to keep pace with him.

"My life is already lost," Dom says breathlessly. "We are born and die; there is no other way. We seek to escape the wheel so that this life will be our last life. The heart is the seat of desire – and desire leads to suffering leads to the wheel turning again. If I lose my heart, I will lose my desire; if I then lose my life, I will be deathless and without desire. That is Nirvana. I will follow you … Lord Na Goshi."

Orlando stops. There's a long silence.

"Orlando," he says at last. And then, off Dom's quizzical look, "my name is Orlando. Gautama Na Goshi was … "

he shrugs,

" … a long time ago."

"Orlando," Dom smiles, as if trying out the shape of the name in his mouth and finding it pleasing.

Orlando turns and walks again, but slowly enough to make it clear that Dom is expected to fall into step beside him, which he does.

"Where are we going?" Dom asks eagerly.

"Internet café," Orlando says.

"You what?" Dom laughs.

"I want to look someone up."

"Who?"

Orlando sticks his cigarette in his mouth to free a hand so he can retrieve the scrap of prayer paper from his coat pocket.

"This guy," he says, squinting into the smoke ribboning from the corner of his mouth.

Dom takes the proffered paper and unfolds it. The ink is splotched and smeared from the rain, which has now lightened to a mist again. But the writing is still legible, all the more so to Dom for being in English.

 _for my brother elijah jordan wood. please let him be safe and help us find him soon_ , the prayer slip reads.


	3. Nogitsune

The gloomy day folds into dusk and then dark while Elijah sleeps on a narrow futon in the corner of a small bare room. The paneled screens stand open, giving onto a roofed wooden walkway and beyond that a stretch of hillocky grass, stark in the gleam of house lights, and beyond that the empty black of the night. The temperature drops even more, but Elijah is warm in a cocoon of thinly padded silk quilts.

He stirs when Billy brings in a stack of lacquered bento boxes and sets them on the floor matting next to the futon. Elijah squirms up onto one elbow, emerging flushed-cheeked and tumble-haired from his nest.

"I'm hungry," he says hoarsely, sitting up and straightening his twisted sweater around his torso. "What is there?"

"Well, let's see," Billy says, opening the topmost box. "This one is chicken and rice. This one … is shrimp, with noodles. This one - "

"It doesn't matter, hand it over," Elijah says.

Billy exhales a small smile and gives the box to Elijah.

"Roast duck, fantastic," Elijah says, setting the box in his lap.

There's a pair of mother-of-pearl inlaid chopsticks in the narrow side-slot of the box. Elijah takes them out and deftly lifts the first bite to his mouth. He closes his eyes and moans in animal pleasure as he licks a gloss of dark rich sauce off his lower lip. The food is always intense and exquisite.

"God, that's good."

He eats half a dozen mouthfuls in quick succession, then abruptly frowns and drops his chopsticks back into the box and pushes it away across the matting.

"You don't want any more than that?" Billy asks, his brows folding anxiously.

"I feel sick," Elijah says, turning his head aside. "Could you – take it away, please?"

"Aye," Billy says, pressing his lips together.

He restacks the boxes and carries them out of the room. While he's gone, Elijah wraps one of the quilts around his shoulders and leans back against the wall. Billy returns empty-handed and sits down cross-legged on the mat.

"Don't you ever feel the cold?" Elijah asks.

Billy is wearing only a loose blue chambray shirt, very faded jeans, and canvas sneakers without socks. His skin, where it shows at his open neckline and cuffs, looks comfortably pink and smooth.

"I don't really think about it," Billy says, shrugging. "Maybe when there's snow on the ground, or ice, but there's always somewhere to curl up and get warm."

Elijah smiles a little, pulling the ends of his sweater sleeves down over his fingers and hitching his quilt higher around the back of his neck.

"But you're cold," Billy says in sudden comprehension. "I'll close the screens."

"Don't bother – I don't think it makes any difference."

"Och, it does," Billy insists, jumping up and sliding the open screen back across the room.

He comes back to Elijah.

"Let me in, I have heat."

He doesn't wait for Elijah to agree or refuse or even really parse the offer properly, he just lifts the quilt from Elijah's left shoulder and sits down next to him on futon, draping the quilt over them both instead. Elijah's eyebrows hitch upwards.

"Yeh hafta pile up close," Billy says, shifting so that he's pressed tightly against Elijah from shoulder to hip to knee.

He takes Elijah's left hand in both of his, pushing back the end of Elijah's sleeve and rubbing Elijah's fingertips between his palms.

"Better?" he asks.

Elijah nods, because Billy's body does hold a small warmth that compensates somewhat for the loss of Elijah's sleep-flush. Billy chafes harder, lifting Elijah's hand to his lips and exhaling damp warmth onto the skin. Elijah's eyelids flicker and his lips part.

"Yeh're still cold; yeh must have thin blood," Billy complains.

Without any change in his expression, without so much as a glance at Elijah, Billy lifts Elijah's hand another inch or two, taking Elijah's fingertips into the satin heat of his mouth.

Elijah catches his breath, his body squirming fractionally away and then back towards Billy. Billy looks at him from the corners of his clear green eyes, his lips tucking up around Elijah's knuckles.

"Warmer?" Billy asks, letting Elijah's fingers slide and then pop from his lips, and rubbing them quickly dry in his hands.

Elijah's breath is uneven. Elijah tips forward and across Billy a little, bringing his open mouth closer to Billy's lips even as he darts a glance at Billy. Billy's eyes grow round.

Elijah pushes a little nearer.

"Billy," he whispers.

Billy leans forward a little, their lips a shaking breath apart now.

Elijah pushes out the tip of his tongue and licks a delicate touch across Billy's lips, then withdraws it again.

Gently, hesitantly, Billy puts his mouth against Elijah's, moving his face from side to side a little so that their lips rub together softly. Elijah shudders in a deep breath. Billy moves some more, his mouth and nose caressing Elijah's lips and chin and jaw. Elijah closes his eyes, his brows gathering together.

Billy strokes his tongue over Elijah's chin, lifting the downy hair growing on Elijah's jaw. Billy licks into the open corners of Elijah's lips, and mouths at the firm flesh of Elijah's cheeks. Elijah's voice flutters in his throat. He reaches out, his hand blundering on quilt and sleeve before he finds the warmth of Billy's groin. Elijah's fingers skim over worn denim; he frowns when he finds Billy's cock slackly soft under the folds of his jeans.

"Don't," Billy says, his whole body tipping away from Elijah a little. "There's no point. I can't help you – I can't help you get away, y'know."

Elijah's mouth opens in an 'oh' of shock, or dismay, or realization.

Billy drops his head, his fingers stroking the frayed hem of his jeans.

"He's got you, too, doesn't he?" Elijah asks. "You're trapped, just like me."

Billy nods.

"How long?" Elijah breathes.

Billy shakes his head.

"Long time. Before you were ever born."

"Oh God," Elijah whispers.

Billy turns his head a little, meeting Elijah's gaze. Billy's eyes are clear and his skin is pink, but his sandy fair hair is baby-thin around his temples and above his forehead, and there are hair-fine lines splaying from the corners of his eyes.

Elijah's expression tightens. He leans in again, and this time he puts his hand to Billy's face to hold him still while Elijah puts his lips to Billy's. Billy flinches away.

"Don't, I told you - "

"I know. That wasn't – I wasn't trying to – I just want to," Elijah says.

Billy looks doubtful. Elijah catches hold of Billy's wrist and pulls his hand down into Elijah's groin, pushing his compliant fingers against the hardening bulge of Elijah's cock.

"See? I _want_ to."

Billy makes a strange little sound like a high-pitched growl in his throat. He nudges his face against Elijah's again, licking and mouthing and nipping with sudden fervor. Elijah closes his eyes again, fumbling over the curves and angles of Billy's narrow body, and this time when he pushes his hand into Billy's lap, there's the reassuring heat and hardness of Billy's cock pushing eagerly back through Billy's jeans.

"Lie down, I don't want yeh to get cold again," Billy says.

Elijah makes a small sound of protest, because for the first time in too long he isn't cold, but lying down is acceptable – better than acceptable, since Billy tips Elijah back and then yields his own weight too. Billy heels his sneakers off onto the floor. Billy and Elijah stretch out on the futon, face to face, legs tangling together below the knees. Billy pulls the mess of quilts around and over them until they're half smothered in a silk-dark tent.

"Let me touch you – Jesus – touch me, too," Elijah says, as both of them fumble at skin and clothes and lips and hair.

Billy pushes Elijah's sweater up on his ribs and works at the buttons of Elijah's jeans, while Elijah concentrates on Billy's zip.

"Does he – does he hurt you?" Billy asks, his whole body stilling for a moment.

"No," Elijah says, his hand pausing against the warmth of Billy's stomach. "No. I've had boyfriends that weren't any … sometimes I think it'd be better if … "

Elijah flexes against Billy, pushing his face into the crook of Billy's neck and digging his fingertips into the lean meat of Billy's sides.

" … it's like a dream, like I can't really _feel_ it, any of it," Elijah says, scoring his stubby nails along Billy's sides. "If I could feel it, really feel it, even just feel it _hurting_ … it might be enough. I might wake up."

Billy shifts his weight aside slightly, and Elijah's right hand slips over Billy's hip and inside Billy's jeans and his fingers wrap around the silky stiffness of Billy's cock. Billy makes a little catching sound in his throat. Elijah lets go again and there's a minute of impatient wriggling while they pull push wrestle their jeans down around their thighs, and then Elijah gets hold of Billy again, feeling the trickle wet slip of foreskin against glans in the palm of his hand. Elijah exhales hard against Billy's neck, his lips curling back from his teeth in a snarl of pleasure.

Billy's fingers insinuate themselves between Elijah's legs, rubbing over his balls. Elijah huffs his breath out through his nostrils.

"Yeah, come on, don't tease," he mutters, reaching down with his free hand and dragging Billy's touch upwards.

Billy's fist closes around Elijah's shaft, working the taut skin against the underlying rigidity, making Elijah gasp and grab at Billy's shoulder with the hand not occupied with Billy's cock.

"Mnn", Elijah murmurs, tugging his lower lip in his teeth.

His hips begin to hitch a little in response to Billy's rubbing. Billy shifts his grip, closing his hand around the head of Elijah's cock. Elijah hisses, pulling back from the too intense contact.

"Easy. You need - "

Billy's look of perplexity makes Elijah flush and smile a little.

"I'm cut – circumcised. You need to make your hand wet or something."

Billy frowns for a second, and then smiles too, untangling his hand from Elijah and the bedclothes to bring his hand to his mouth. He spits, productively and unselfconsciously. Elijah quivers in anticipation, and then gasps sharply at the lush slip of Billy's palm around the most sensitive part of him. Elijah thrusts into Billy's hand, letting each push of his hips power the slide of his own hand on Billy's cock.

"Am I doin' it right?" Billy says against Elijah's mouth.

Elijah laughs breathlessly.

"Yeah – fuck, yeah. It feels good – it feels - _real_. Do it harder, Billy. Make me feel it."

Billy tightens his fingers around Elijah's cock until Elijah's hissing his breath through clenched teeth, his head thrown back so that his throat arches tightly in a long line to the tip of his uplifted chin. Billy nips and worries at the underside of Elijah's jaw and works himself in Elijah's grip with furious intensity.

Elijah opens his mouth wide, breathing deeply and then holding holding holding each breath until it explodes exhausted from his lungs and he gasps in again. His body hums tight, his spine bowing and his toes curling then he comes apart, comes in a sweet pulsing of relief, groaning gutturally against Billy's jaw.

Billy writhes, stabbing himself into the slippery unsure grip of Elijah's fingers. Elijah forces himself back into focus, forces himself to press his body pliant and hot against Billy's, to tighten his hand around Billy's cock, to smear his lips against Billy's.

Billy comes with a silent little shudder, though his hips continue to jab fervently without so much as a hesitation in rhythm, and it's only the jet of semen and the gradual softening of his cock that tells Elijah he _has_ come. Then his movement falters and stops, and he peels away from Elijah. Elijah groans, still trying to recover his breath.

Billy burrows under the quilts, and Elijah stutters out a long cry at the sweep of Billy's tongue against his belly, through the slip-pool of semen in the cup of Elijah's left hip.

Elijah's eyes flicker as he struggles to stay conscious. Billy's tongue slicks paths of pleasure over Elijah's belly and balls and hand and hip. Elijah's eyes close and his breathing slows. Billy wriggles back up along Elijah's side and curls close, pushing his nose and mouth against the crease of Elijah's underarm.

"This isn't real either, is it?" Elijah murmurs blurrily.

"The Holy Ones say nothing is real," Billy answers, lifting his head enough to watch Elijah's face until it smoothes into the pale tranquility of sleep.


	4. The Ten Thousand Things

Dom smiles and presses his hands together and bows deeply to the doorman who's let him into the old brass and marble foyer of the apartment building. Dom squats down at the foot of the few stone steps leading up to the elevator, folding his robes around him and composing himself to wait patiently. It's fully dark outside, and the yellow foyer lights are reflected in the shiny black of the plate-glass door. Dom takes his beads out and begins to murmur his prayers under his breath.

He doesn't know how long he's been waiting, though the beads have grown warm and silky in his hands, when the doorman pushes the door open again, letting in a gust of chill damp night and a tiny woman with candy pink hair and candy pink sneakers.

"Hannah Wood?" Dom says, getting to his feet quickly. "You're Hannah Wood, right?"

He sees the first wary hardening of her gray-blue eyes at being addressed by a stranger, and then the dilating trust that his crimson robes always produce, and then the equally inevitable confusion when she parses his features and his voice. European monks are not unknown, but they're still rare enough to invite second glances.

"I don't know you," Hannah says. Her voice is unexpectedly gravelly from such a china doll face and form.

"I'm Dominic," Dom supplies. "I'm a monk at the Tshin Tshen monastery."

"Okay," Hannah says, her finely drawn brows pulling together in a frown.

"We pray at the Rin Shi temple some days and - I – this is yours, right?" Dom says a little nervously, holding out his right hand with the crumpled and smoothed scrap of her prayer paper lying curled in his palm.

Hannah's frown tightens and then blossoms into wide-eyed confusion.

"That's – it's – you _took_ my prayer paper?" she demands, her face folding again into anger as she glares up at Dom.

" _No_ \- I mean – someone – I – it's – I only want to help find your brother," Dom says hastily.

"What is this?" Hannah says, stepping back, her voice and expression suddenly cold with careful suspicion. "What do you want? If you know something, you should go to the police."

Dom sighs in frustration.

"Look, I'm sorry, I know this probably seems kinda weird but really, honestly, I just want to help. I'd – I'd like to pray for your brother," Dom says with sudden certainty. "I mean, you must believe that prayer has the power to help him, don't you? You wrote the prayer paper, so you must believe that."

Hannah's petal-red mouth presses into an unsteady line.

"I … I don't know … I just … I was in the park, walking, and … it didn't seem like it would hurt, y'know? At least it felt like I was doing something. I'm willing to try anything, y'know?"

"Then, maybe you could try trusting me," Dom says with a coaxing smile. "It can't hurt, can it?"

There's a silence while Hannah considers that, her expression gradually softening into weary agreement. She steps past Dom, gathering the skirts of her flared black coat around her knees and sitting down on the second highest step.

"What do you want?" she asks, tipping her head back to look up at Dom.

He hunkers down, sitting down next to her a step further down, so that he's on eyelevel with her.

"I just – I need to know some things about your brother. I need – some sense of connection," he says with carefully contained excitement. "All I know is what was in the newspapers. Your brother disappeared – what – six weeks ago?"

Hannah nods, her eyes pressing closed for a moment.

"And there was some suggestion he'd been kidnapped, maybe for a ransom, but nothing's been heard since," Dom goes on. "What – what made the police think someone would look for a ransom for him?"

Hannah shrugs.

"Our mom is Deborah Wood."

She tips her head impatiently at Dom's lack of recognition.

"She's a realtor; she deals in business properties, banks, hotels, stuff like that. She put together the tenants for the new Jubilee Place commercial center. She works really hard and she makes, I guess, quite a lot of money. A million a year, maybe. She's not _super_ rich, not by Hong Kong standards, but … she'd pay every dime she's got to get Elijah home."

Dom nods thoughtfully.

"Your brother works for a movie company here, right? He's on the credits for a bunch of those chop-socky export action movies."

Hannah smiles shakily.

"Assistant director, yeah. I didn't realize kung fu movies were standard viewing in Buddhist monasteries."

Dom grins and ducks his head in momentary embarrassment.

"Nah, that came from the Internet. It's been a few years since I watched anything like that."

"Well, he does promotion for some local indie bands too. That's what he really wants to do – music stuff."

"Hmm. He have friends? Friends who might have gotten him into trouble? Or maybe friends he just needed to get away from for a while?"

Hannah shakes her head deliberately.

"Elijah's – Elijah's _smart_. I don't just mean school smart or work smart, I mean _life smart_. My dad left when we were kids and my mom … she kinda just … broke. Elijah was fifteen years old and he's the one who held it together. He's the one who got mom to see she couldn't just … lie in bed crying. He's the one who decided we should leave Iowa, just get the hell out and go somewhere completely different. I think he picked Hong Kong out of one of those light-up pictures in a Chinese restaurant. Sounds insane, doesn't it? But it's true. Elijah's … _strong_. He doesn't scare easy. He doesn't break. That's how come I'm so sure he's still - "

Hannah chokes off, wrinkling her nose up to stifle the tears itching behind her eyes,

" – I'm sure he's okay and trying to get back to us," she manages.

Dom takes hold of her little hand and squeezes reassuringly. Hannah snuffles and nods vigorously. She takes her hand back and digs in her purse, producing a metal cigarette case and a mother-of-pearl lighter. She clicks the case open and sticks one skinny cigarette between her lips. She has to snap the lighter half a dozen times before the flame catches. She stuffs everything back into her purse before taking the cigarette from her mouth and exhaling a stream of smoke.

"Do you have a picture of him?" Dom asks.

"Shit, yeah, sure," Hannah says, sticking her cigarette back in her mouth so she can rummage around for her wallet. "Here, take your pick. I've been carrying them round in fistfuls ever since … well. Ever since."

She holds out a messy deck of photographs of all different sizes. Dom takes the pile carefully in both hands and lets it slide from one palm to the other. The stack sort of splits and a single picture is caught framed in the curled fingers of Dom's left hand.

Hannah's brother has sky blue eyes and a smile that makes Dom grin back at his image.

"Good-looking family," Dom says.

Hannah shrugs but also smiles a little.

"Our older brother Zack is the one who always got the girls. 'Course, Elijah never _wanted_ to get the girls, so … "

Dom returns the rest of the photographs to her; she rubs her thumb over the glossy surface of the uppermost picture in the pile.

"How long have you been a monk?" she asks abruptly. "You're British, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Dom says, nodding. "Eh, almost seven years now. In Manchester first, then Los Angeles, and New York, and now here."

Hannah reaches out, her fingertips grazing the bare curve of Dom's right upper arm.

"That's Japanese, isn't it?" she asks, frowning, a little perplexed.

"Oh, yeah. It means 'sword'."

"Not a very Buddhist sentiment."

"No, I suppose not. I got it when I was nineteen – I was very keen on martial arts at the time."

Hannah lifts her finely arched eyebrows in surprise and amusement.

"I guess I've just been searching for something for a long time," Dom says by way of explanation.

"Does it help? Letting go of everything, having no attachments?" Hannah asks, lifting her gaze from Dom's tattoo to his gray eyes. "Does it stop the pain?"

"It – it makes things clearer," Dom says solemnly.

There's a long beat of silence while Hannah considers this.

"I'm not sure I want things any clearer than they already are," she says at last.

She stands, slipping her bundle of photographs back into her purse and dusting her herself off.

"What will you do with my prayer paper?" she says, as Dom steps aside to let her go up the steps to the elevator.

"Oh. I – I'll put it back where it was, if you like."

Hannah nods, and gives him a last look, and turns away.

"But - " Dom says impulsively, and Hannah glances back over her shoulder at him. "But, I think it's already done some good. Maybe, a lot of good."

Hannah smiles with enough warmth to make her eyes shine.

"And I _will_ pray for him," Dom says.

Hannah nods, and then turns away again.

 _cut_

Dom wakes in the night from a dream of a boy with blue eyes, who never cries but who sometimes sits silent and wide-eyed in the corner behind his bed, waiting for the pain in his heart to ease enough to let him breath.

Dom is lying on a large, lush couch upholstered in black leather as tender and deep as velvet. He has drawn the folds of his robes around himself; he's also covered with a silky blanket the color and sheen of steel, but as soft as cobwebs.

He sits up, frowning a little. There's a strange scent on the air, a fragile sweetness like sun-warmed blossoms.

Dom throws aside the blanket and stands up. There's a soft golden glow seeping around the closed door to Orlando's bedroom. Dom moves closer, his bare feet silent on the thick rugs underfoot.

The door is not quite shut, resting just ajar on the latch. Dom feels something warm and gentle brushing against his skin, like ghost petals. The fragrance of flowers mixes with the musk of ripe fruits and honey in the comb. Dom's mouth fills with a faint but distinct milky sweetness.

Dom reaches out, his fingers touching the door and pushing it further open.

The room is full of streaming light.

Orlando is sitting naked, cross-legged over the middle of the big white bed, his eyes closed and his hands lifted in the graceful gestures of the Rin Shi statue. Light moves over his skin like the twist and flicker of silent flames, and radiance pours from him in broad streams like sunlight shafting through dark clouds.

The fragrance of incense fills Dom's nostrils, and his mouth waters at the taste of red peaches on his tongue.

Orlando's eyelids lift, revealing pitch-black voids where his eyes should be. Dom gasps, and the air that fills his lungs is sweeter and more potent than wine. Dom feels something slow and heated unfurl at the base of his spine, and his blood seems to shimmer in his veins, and his skin to quiver on his flesh.

"Lotus Eyes," he breathes.

Orlando's left hand rotates gently downwards until it is extended in a attitude of acceptance; his right moves upwards, thumb and middle finger parting, so that it is lifted in benediction.

Dom can feel the wash of blood through his own veins, the rush of air through his lungs. He can feel each cell, each molecule, each atom as it spins and sparkles in the dark. He can feel within himself the nested memory of body that is his father and mother, his grandparents and great-grandparents and on through countless diminishing reflections to the first wheeling molecule of DNA floating in the stagnant sea of not-life. He can feel the life-that-might-be coursing heavy and hot between his legs, and other streams of life that he might interweave with, and how something of him might be carried forward endlessly until the wheel turns upon itself and the end and the beginning become one and all things are complete.

Dom feels the shudder run through his body, and the pleasure fill his chest and mouth and mind. His fingers flex unfeelingly against the surface of the door.

For a moment there is only the light of Orlando's skin, and the dark of Orlando's eyes, and Dom's body yields in blinding bliss.

And then there is his heart beating hard, and his breath coming quickly, and the cooling sweat on his skin. The light is gathering itself back into Orlando, and his eyes are shining darkly under his eyelashes.

"I know where he is," Orlando says.

Dom leans against the doorframe, and licks his chaffed and reddened lips as he nods.


	5. Mara

Elijah wakes and pushes his tangled quilts away restlessly. The room is cruelly cold again, and one of the screens is partially open.

"Billy?"

"I'm here," Billy answers softly.

He's sitting on the floor next to the futon, just staring down at Elijah, eyes gleaming weirdly yellow-green in the dark.

"Jesus. Turn a light on, would you?" Elijah says, rolling up onto his elbow, clawing his fingers through the mess of his hair and scratching at the soft growth of his beard.

Billy stands and moves away; Elijah winces and blinks as soft light floods the room.

"Thanks. Fuck, I feel like fucking shit," Elijah coughs, laboriously sitting up properly. "What time is - ?"

He stops, looking at the pale place on his left wrist where he once wore a watch.

"Shit. I'll never fucking get used to this," he mutters as Billy sits down again.

Billy lifts his face a little, nostrils dilating delicately as he inhales.

"Closer to dawn than dusk," he announces.

Elijah looks at him for a long moment, and then hacks out a dry cough.

"I fucking hurt all over," he says.

He glances down, suddenly aware of the way he's scratching methodically at the inside of his left elbow, his fingers pushed up inside the stretched cuff of his sweater sleeve.

"Billy," Elijah breathes. "Last night, you … you didn't ... give me my shot … "

He trails off into silence. Billy's expression twists. He shakes his head slowly.

"He said not to. He said … yeh're not to have it today. He said he wants yeh … sharp."

Elijah folds forward a little around his own breath. He digs his teeth hard into his own lower lip and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment.

"Jesus. Christ," he says softly.

He lifts his head, looking at Billy with begging eyes. Billy can only shake his head again. Elijah lies down, turning onto his side and curling up tight. Billy comes to him on hands and knees, lying down beside him, snuffling and nuzzling his face into the tender curve between Elijah's shoulder and neck. Elijah closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing in and out.

The darkness outside is turning from black to blue when Elijah hears the car, the low thrum of its engine and the crunch of its tires on the gravel roadway.

"Billy," Elijah whispers. "What is that?"

Billy sits up, but Elijah's already scrambling across the floor to the open screen. He peers out through the narrow gap.

"Shit, it's on the other side of the house," he says. "Billy, I haven't heard a car coming or going here before. Do you think it's one of Viggo's people?"

"I don't know," Billy says anxiously.

"I'm gonna fucking find out," Elijah mutters, hauling himself onto his feet with difficulty.

"No!" Billy says, jumping up and catching hold of Elijah's arm. "You mustn't."

"Billy," Elijah pleads, "I can't fucking stay here. Come on, for all we know it could be the fucking landscape guys. We've got to try to get out of here."

"He won't let yeh go. He never lets anyone go - _never_. It's not what he is."

Elijah shrugs Billy off and stumbles out of the room. After a second's hesitation, Billy goes after him.

Dom and Orlando get out of the car and slam the doors closed. Orlando's wearing his habitual denims and sweater and long coat, but Dom's no longer dressed in his crimson robes. He's wearing black leather jeans and a skinny black tee shirt under a long gray suede jacket. His wooden prayer beads are wound around his right wrist, looping down a little onto the back of his hand.

"So, what?" Dom asks as he and Orlando walk side by side up the broad stone steps leading to the garden at the front of the house. "We just walk in an' take him back?"

"Actually, you're gonna just walk in and take him back," Orlando says. "I can't go into the house."

"What? Why not?" Dom scowls.

"The thresholds are marked with blood. It's unclean."

Dom inhales sharply, and squares his shoulders.

They follow the winding path past a stone lantern shining under the red leaves of a young maple, and around the curve of a small dark pool. The screens at the front of the house are standing open, and the lamps are on inside. The room, almost empty except for a high white bed, looks like a deserted stage-set.

Dom and Orlando pause just below the roofed walkway that runs along the front of the house.

"You came," Viggo rasps, stepping out from the blind corner of the room where the screens are pushed together.

"The wheel's free to turn, but only forwards and back," Orlando says.

"Come in, let me offer you the hospitality of my house," Viggo smirks.

"Come out and show me your garden," Orlando answers at once. "It's a beautiful night."

Viggo hisses, his lips drawing back from his teeth. Dom takes an involuntary step backwards, but Orlando just smiles.

"What is this?" Dom asks softly.

"I can't go in," Orlando explains, "but he can't come out."

Dom darts another glance of wary fascination at Viggo.

"He built a fortress to keep me at bay, but instead he got a prison," Orlando goes on.

"You're as trapped as I am, Lotus Eyes," Viggo says, coming to the very brink of the room's step, his long bare toes curling over the rim of the smooth wood. "All the wide world's a cage to you."

Orlando moves slowly forward, stepping up onto the walkway despite Dom's sharp intake of breath. He stops with the tips of his boots nudging the face of the step Viggo stands on.

The inner door of the room slides roughly open. Elijah leans in the doorway, one hand half-raised against his mouth.

"I need you to help me," he says hoarsely, looking past Viggo to Dom and Orlando. "I'm an American, and I'm being kept here against my will."

"Elijah," Dom says sharply, stepping up and across the threshold.

Elijah scowls, his hand closing on the doorframe, trying to brace himself upright.

"I don't know you," he says.

"I'm a friend," Dom says, coming closer. "I know Hannah."

Viggo tips his head in exasperation.

"Oh, this is no good," he says.

He reaches out with one hand towards Elijah, his long fingers splayed wide, and then snatches his hand back in a tight fist.

Elijah convulses, his mouth gaping wide for air he can't breath. He heaves, and then folds, dropping to his knees on the floor.

"Elijah!" Dom cries, darting the last few feet to him.

"No," Orlando snaps at Viggo.

"Oh, all I've taken is the breath out of his lungs," Viggo counters. "I could take his beating heart out of his chest if I wanted."

"Let him go," Orlando says.

Viggo laughs a little breathlessly.

"No, I don't think so, not without getting something in exchange."

Billy runs in, pitching to his knees beside Elijah. Elijah, his whole body working frantically for breath, clutches at him.

"No, no," Billy whimpers.

He looks up and sees Orlando.

"Please," Billy keens. "Holy One. _Please_."

"What do you want?" Orlando snarls at Viggo.

"Keep him with you, for nine days," Viggo says, his eyes luminous with delight.

Orlando's brow gathers into a frown of confusion.

"Nine days, for the nine hundred years I've spent in this house. Say you'll do it," Viggo snaps. "Or I'll rip the heart from the monk, too."

Orlando's face smoothes, and his eyes sweep softly closed and then open again.

"I'll do it," he smiles.

Viggo flicks his fist open, and Elijah gasps, sobbing breath into his aching lungs.

"Aye, there, there," Billy croons, petting Elijah's hair haphazardly. "There."

"Get up, we're going," Dom says quickly, pulling Elijah upright and slipping an arm around his waist to support him to the threshold.

"Billy," Elijah pants. "Come on."

"No," Billy says, his eyes round with dismay. "I can't. No."

"I'm not going without Billy," Elijah coughs, trying to push Dom off.

Dom grits his teeth and half-hauls half-carries Elijah over the step despite Elijah's increasingly determined struggles.

"No, not without Billy!" Elijah says.

"Here," Dom says, shoving Elijah at Orlando and running back into the room.

"No!" Billy yells, twisting desperately when Dom catches hold of him by the sleeve.

Viggo, grinning madly, extends his arm again, hand open.

"Oh – _fucking hell_ ," Dom spits.

He pulls back with his right fist and snaps out a hammer-and-anvil punch straight to Billy's jaw. Billy drops, Dom catches him and slings him over his shoulder.

"So much for shagging nirvana," Dom says, getting his head down and just going for the threshold.

Viggo lets his fingers furl softly and his hand drop to his side.

"Nine days," he says gently to Orlando, when Dom's shouldered past.

Elijah eases his grip on Orlando's coat enough to turn slightly to address Viggo.

"I'm gonna see you burn in fucking hell for what you've done," he says.

Viggo's sardonic smile falls away, his face smoothing into slight surprise.

"But … I am. I already am. I always have been."

Elijah's eyes widen.

The air around him turns hot and restless, and the yellow glow of the house lights is suddenly dry and cloying. There's a wind, sudden and silent but searing. Viggo's hair and skin and eyes flutter like tattered flames. Viggo's flesh blackens and cracks and oozes purple, and Viggo's lips curl back from his teeth, back from his gums, back from his jaws.

Elijah cries out and turns his face into the soft dark of Orlando's coat collar.

"Shh," Orlando breathes.

He stoops a little and scoops Elijah up into his arms. He turns away, and Elijah forces himself to glance once more in Viggo's direction, but there is nothing now but a lean man standing on the open threshold of a house, with the chill pearl light of dawn beginning to brighten around him. Elijah closes his eyes and hides his face in Orlando's shoulder again.


	6. The Floating World

"He's asleep now," Orlando says softly, pulling the door of the bedroom gently closed behind him. "Phra Dominic will stay with him."

Elijah's sitting curled up at one end of the black leather couch, bare feet tucked up under himself. He's wearing dark denims with the ends rolled up and an oversized gray cashmere sweater. His hair is damply spiked and drying into shining tufts, and he's clean-shaven.

"I want to go home," he says harshly.

"I'm sorry," Orlando says, bending his head as he moves past the couch. "That can't happen, not yet. You heard the agreement - "

" _Yes_. I heard the agreement you made with the man who had me kidnapped and kept pumped full of fucking shit and who _raped me_ pretty much every single day for forty-three days. I can see why you'd feel obliged to stick to that arrangement," Elijah says, his voice low but twisting with anger.

Orlando turns away for a moment, and then looks back at Elijah.

"Don't, you'll hurt yourself," he says, coming towards Elijah again.

Elijah flinches back, looking down in confusion to find that he's clawing at the inside of his own wrist.

"Fuck," he breathes. " _Fuck_."

He pulls the ends of his sleeves down over both hands, fisting the soft fabric to cover his fingers.

"It feels like – something crawling under my skin," he winces.

"It's the drugs," Orlando says, hunkering down in front of Elijah.

"You don't fucking say."

"If you want, I can get you something to help, to take the - "

" _No_. I've had enough fucking pharmaceuticals to last a lifetime, thanks. Six weeks doesn't make me a junkie. I don't want it; I never fucking wanted it."

"No, you really didn't," Orlando says softly.

He reaches out with one hand, his fingertips just brushing the leather upholstery beneath Elijah's knee. Elijah watches the motion with interest.

"Why was that?" Orlando asks in barely more than a whisper.

Elijah glances up, looking at Orlando's downcast eyelids.

"It … took the edges off everything. It made reality seem … unreal."

"Many people would like that."

"Not me. I … I want reality … the way it is."

Orlando looks up too, and their eyes meet.

"I guess I've always been lucky," Elijah goes on, still staring down into Orlando's eyes. "No reason to hide from what's real."

"Even now? After what's happened to you? Do you still think you're lucky?"

Elijah shrugs deliberately.

"I could be dead. I could be still there."

Orlando closes his eyes, and something of the softness around his mouth fades.

"Why did he do this to me?" Elijah asks abruptly. "And why did he just let me go? It's because of you, isn't it?"

"He thinks you can hurt me," Orlando says, his eyes flashing open.

He stands again and turns away.

"Can I?" Elijah asks.

Orlando turns his head slightly, not quite looking over his shoulder.

"Perhaps. Yes."

Elijah subsides into the corner of the couch, pulling thoughtlessly at the end of his sleeve.

"I'll get word to your family, to let them know that you're safe, and that you'll be home soon," Orlando says.

"What about Billy? Will you be able to find his family?"

"Billy – Billy doesn't have anyone," Orlando says.

"Jesus," Elijah breathes, the name shivering between his lips.

"Billy's not like you. Elijah … he may choose to go back to Viggo."

" _No_ , you can't let him."

"Do you want me to keep him prisoner here, is that what you want?" Orlando demands.

Elijah rocks back, grimacing in distress.

"He can't help it," he pleads. "It's all he knows, but … _please_. There has to be someone – who can help him. Who can do something for him."

Orlando presses his narrow lips together and crushes his eyes closed for a moment.

"Go to Dominic," he says at last. "Billy knows you, if he wakes, you'll be able to reassure him better than Dominic can."

Elijah frowns at a little at this, as if it's not the turn he expected the conversation to take, but he nods and unfolds himself carefully from his perch. He hunches his shoulders and folds his arms across his chest as he walks past Orlando and goes into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Orlando glances down at his own left palm, rubbing his right thumb into the creases of his skin.

"You're weaving your trap," he murmurs. "But even ten thousand threads are still only a cobweb."

 _cut_

Billy twists awake, gasping for breath before he's even opened his eyes.

" _Give it_ ," he snarls, his bowed lips drawn back from his small teeth in a grimace of fury.

"Billy, it's okay," Elijah says urgently, leaning over Billy.

Dom, who's been sitting in the armchair in the corner counting silently over the prayer beads still wrapped around his wrist, stands up and cranes to see Billy over Elijah's shoulder.

"I hafta go back," Billy says, gripping Elijah's arms hard enough to draw a flinch of pain.

"No, no you don't," Elijah says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and leaning his whole body over Billy protectively.

"Yeh don' understand. He has somethin' o' mine, an' I must get it back, _I must_."

Elijah glances at Dom, but Dom's eyes are wide and wondering too, and Dom shrugs.

"It's okay," Elijah says again. "We'll figure it out Billy, I promise."

"Oh, figure it out," Billy whines. "Yeh're all so good at figurin' things out, at thinkin', at knowin'. I don' want to think, or know. I want to _be_ , just _be_."

"I know, it's okay," Elijah says more softly, leaning down until his face is against the crumpled shoulder of Billy's tee-shirt.

"Jus' be," Billy murmurs, his body slackening again as Elijah shifts to lie beside him. "Jus' be … bone in body … blood in bone. Be the night wheeling … the earth growing … the little things that run so hard … I had no name … I had no _I_ … "

"I know," Elijah whispers, his hand making slow passes along the wiry muscles of Billy's arm.

Billy turns his head on the pillow and snuffles at Elijah's hair.

"No yeh don't," Billy sighs. "No mortal does, except the very holiest of the Holy Ones."

"Nirvana," Dom breathes. "You're talking about nirvana. Orlando can just be, can't he?"

Elijah darts another look at him, but Dom's attention is fixed on Billy.

"Lotus Eyes … almost, once," Billy says sleepily. "But Mara made him blink. Made him remember his _I_. Now … he's rememberin' … more than that."

"What are you?" Dom asks in wonder. "A Buddha?"

Billy exhales a breathy laugh.

"Buddhas. Old men that get statues and temples for doing what any kit can do."

He turns over a little, curling his body into Elijah's, and closes his eyes again. For a moment Elijah looks up at Dom, then closes his eyes too. Dom sits down again, his leather jeans creaking a little.

 _cut_

"Orlando!" Dom yells.

Orlando, stripped to a white tank and his jeans, runs barefoot into the bedroom. Elijah is thrashing on the bed, his hair and clothes soaked with sweat, while Dom tries to restrain him. Billy is crouched at the side of the bed, whimpering.

"He's burning up," Dom says breathlessly as Orlando drops to his knees beside the bed and wipes the mess of wet curls off Elijah's white face.

"He's dying," Billy keens.

"He's not dying," Orlando says firmly. "Or least, not anymore than anyone else. Turn him over, he's going to - "

They get Elijah onto his side just as the shivers running through his body coalesce into a single spasm and he chokes up a mouthful of bile and stomach acid onto the crumpled sheets.

"Oh God," Elijah moans.

"You're doing great," Dom says, yanking the sheets free on his side of the bed as Orlando pulls Elijah – a limp, sour smelling mess – into his arms.

"There's bowls in the kitchen," Orlando says, tossing his head in that direction. "Get one, and some water."

Dom nods and moves away quickly.

"Oh _fucking_ God it hurts," Elijah grinds, as his body flexes helplessly under another onslaught of pain.

Orlando pulls Elijah's bodyweight back against his chest and begins to hum under his breath. Elijah struggles for breath around the jabbing in his guts, but gradually he quiets. Billy crouches at the foot of the bed, watching with interest.

Dom stops in the doorway, bowl in one hand and plastic water bottle in the other. Orlando beckons him in. Dom comes to him, and Orlando takes the opened water bottle and guides it to Elijah's lips. Elijah manages to sputter a sip down, before his body revolts again and he heaves forward over the bowl Dom hastily thrusts in front of him.

"Oh God I'm gonna fucking die," Elijah says when the crisis has passed and he drops limply back against Orlando.

"No, you're not," Orlando says, spilling a little of the water into his cupped palm and then wiping his wet hand over Elijah's face and throat. "Not until many many years from now, and many many miles from here."

Billy hums a small sound of satisfaction, settling back on his heels and resting his arms and chin on the end of the bed. Orlando glances at him.

"Your heart's growing soft, Nogitsune," Orlando says, smiling slightly. "I remember when a mortal's living or dying was nothing to you."

Billy scowls and folds in on himself.

"I've worn this skin for too long," he mutters. "For far too long."

"If it was in my power to release you, I would," Orlando says.

"Oh, you'd do better to look to yer own welfare, Lotus Eyes," Billy sniffs. "Or he'll have your skin off yeh too, and locked up in a box."

Orlando shakes his head, but his smile fades. He rocks Elijah in his arms, and hums, and the day passes hour by slow hour of sickness for Elijah.


	7. The Demon's Daughters

"I don't think this a good idea," Elijah mutters, the words a little misshapen between his cracked lips.

"It's a great idea," Dom says with determined good cheer, putting one arm around Elijah to help him struggle up against the pillows.

Elijah wipes the heel of his hand across his nose and mouth, his jaw set and his eyebrows furrowed. He's a little flushed, his hair tousled and his chin shadowed with a trace of soft stubble, but his eyes have cooled and his body is languid and easy in the exhaustion of a broken fever.

Dom fusses with the pillows while Orlando sits down on the edge of the bed next to Elijah. Orlando has a white dishcloth slung over one shoulder, and cradles a small china bowl in one hand.

"You guys are gonna be sorry when I boot all over the bed and you have to change the sheets for – what – like, the millionth time," Elijah says darkly.

"Third time," Dom says with a smile.

"Just one spoonful and we'll leave you alone," Orlando says, scraping the spoon against the side of the bowl. "Open up."

Elijah wrinkles his nose but obeys, leaning forward a little to meet the offered spoonful. His lips wrap around the ceramic spoon, purse, and pull back, his eyes flickering closed. He makes a sound of pure pleasure.

"Oh, fuck, that tastes so good," he says when he's chewed and swallowed and pulled his lower lip through his teeth to capture every last molecule of the flavor. "What is that?"

"Boiled rice with a little tamari," Orlando says, and grins at Elijah's expression of disbelief.

Elijah lets Orlando feed him another mouthful and then insists on managing for himself. Orlando surrenders the spoon but holds the bowl for Elijah. Elijah works his way through the rest of the small portion.

"Um, God, that was so good," he sighs in satisfaction, letting the spoon rattle into the empty bowl and sagging back into the pillows. "I don't even wanna stop, but I'm stuffed."

"Here, I'll take that," Dom says, relieving Orlando of bowl and spoon and dishcloth. "I better check on Billy."

"Is he okay?" Elijah asks anxiously.

"He's fine," Orlando says, as Dom leaves the room.

Elijah slides further down in the bed, stretching himself out and letting his eyes flutter closed.

"Best thing about being sick," he says, "is, when you start to feel better, it's like being reborn. Everything's shiny and new. Everything's a gift."

He sighs deeply, letting his limbs sink into the cool softness of the bed.

Orlando watches him, watches the rise and fall of his chest as his breathing turns smooth and slow. After a few minutes, Orlando reaches out slowly, his right hand extended above Elijah's head. He reaches down, so slowly, until his fingers just brush the silky tips of Elijah's hair.

"In the name of Buddha and all the Buddhas who have lived and live and will live," Orlando whispers, "in the name of all living things - "

Elijah's eyes sweep open again, and his gaze locks with Orlando's.

Orlando draws back.

"Don't," Elijah says clearly. "Don't let him trap you."

Orlando catches his breath, and then he leans forward again, frowning.

"Elijah? Are you awake?" he asks, his voice low but distinct.

Elijah gasps, his eyes widening as he shifts under the covers.

"What - ?"

"It's alright," Orlando says at once. "You were dreaming. Go back to sleep."

Elijah looks dubious, but after a moment he nods and turns his cheek against the pillow. Orlando waits only a minute or so, then he stands, and turns away, and leaves the room.

 

 _water_

Elijah leans back, letting his weight rest against Orlando's chest. Orlando's hands move upwards, gathering the thin cotton of Elijah's tee shirt up over his belly and chest. Elijah lifts his arms and shifts forwards a little, and the garment grazes softly over his face and is gone. Elijah's eyelids flicker; Orlando's lips part as he inhales deeply.

His hands skim downwards again, following the line of Elijah's body to his waist, to the buttons of his jeans. Elijah's hands glance past Orlando's, and he starts to undo his fly himself. He shrugs, trying to push the denim off, but he can't bend and balance at the same time, and he has to lean back again.

"I've got it," Orlando murmurs, his hands spread palms against Elijah's hips, pushing his jeans down.

"Everything feels … so real," Elijah breathes. "So … raw."

"Are you alright?" Orlando asks, his fingers bracleting around Elijah's slender wrist, guiding his hand to the support of the tiled wall next to him.

"Yes."

Orlando moves away, moves around Elijah, and goes to his knees. He pulls Elijah's jeans down the rest of the way. Elijah lifts each bare foot in turn and Orlando finally swipes the jeans out of the way across the floor.

"I'm sorry I need so much help," Elijah says, turning his face aside as Orlando moves behind him again.

Orlando doesn't answer. His knuckles brush the pale skin of Elijah's back. Elijah closes his eyes and his cheeks color a little as Orlando eases his underwear off for him. Orlando tosses the garment on top of Elijah's discarded jeans.

"Come on, you'll feel better afterwards," Orlando says, reaching past Elijah and palming the chrome knob of the shower control.

The water bursts out in a heavy fall, the rush of sound filling the too large silence in the bathroom.

"Wait a second, until it gets warm," Orlando says.

"This is why he chose me, isn't it?" Elijah says very softly.

Orlando's eyes widen a little. Elijah lifts and turns his chin, so that he's looking up at Orlando over his naked shoulder.

"Because I'm weak."

"No," Orlando says, the gentle force of the word curving his body protectively over Elijah's. "No. No, that's not it at all."

"Then … why?"

"Because you're strong."

Elijah looks away, but Orlando's gaze is tethered to him and follows when he steps forward under the spray. Water shatters on Elijah's shoulders and winds shining down his spine. His hair feathers smooth against his head, and drops stream from his chin. He closes his eyes, his eyelashes spiked wetly together.

"You should send me away," Elijah says.

"If I break my word, I'll have done wrong to serve myself. I'll be further away from my freedom than before. That's what he wants … to keep me here, forever if he can."

"How do you beat him, then?"

"By fulfilling the arrangement, by keeping you with me for nine days and then letting you go … without regret."

Elijah's eyes snap open, but he hesitates a beat before he looks from under dripping eyelashes at Orlando, standing on the threshold of the shower.

"Why would you - ?" he falters.

The softness in Orlando's eyes is suddenly more eloquent than Elijah can bear, and he turns his head away sharply, throwing shining drops of water off in an arc.

"I'm - "

"I'm fine," Elijah cuts in. "You know, this is kinda weird, I mean, you being here an' … would you mind asking Billy to come in and sit with me? Though, you know, I'll be okay on my own anyway - "

"I'll get Billy," Orlando says as he goes out.

 

 _fire_

Elijah wakes in the dark, his body curled in a tight fetal knot. Billy's breath is warm against his face, but the rest of Elijah's skin feels stiff and cold. Billy bundles the blankets under Elijah's chin and rubs Elijah's reddened fingertips between his palms.

Elijah catches his breath, eyes flying wide with fear.

"No, I'm - "

"You're alright," Billy says, pushing his nose into the hollow of Elijah's shoulder.

Elijah struggles up onto his elbows, looking around in desperation until he can make out enough of the room – the armchair in the corner, the ink-brush paintings hanging on the far wall, the gauze-draped windows on the other side – to reassure himself. He drops back into the pillows.

"Fuck. I thought – it's so fucking cold, I thought - "

"It's not cold, I'm not cold," Billy says, nudging his body against Elijah's.

But Elijah shakes so hard his teeth rattle, despite Billy's best efforts at draping his warmth over Elijah.

"Yeh're sick again," Billy says accusingly.

Elijah shakes his head, but can't unlock his jaw enough to speak.

"I'm telling Lotus Eyes," Billy says, scrambling off the bed.

"No!" Elijah coughs. "Not Orlando. Bring Dominic."

Billy tips his head to one side, his pale green eyes widening.

"Please," Elijah insists. "Phra Dominic."

Billy frowns, but he also nods, and hurries out of the room. Elijah curls up again, dragging the bedcovers around him, but he feels frozen to his core.

"Elijah," Orlando says, coming quickly to the bed, while Billy and Dom follow right behind.

"I couldn't help it," Billy says excitedly, "he was right there, with Phra Dominic, I couldn't help that he came."

Elijah can't help a wry smile at that, especially since Orlando is on his knees beside the bed and pressing his warm rough palm against Elijah's face.

"You're freezing," he murmurs, pushing up and sitting on the bed beside Elijah.

"Don't," Elijah implores, but his whole body seems to flex yearningly into the heat of Orlando's touch.

"I won't," Orlando says, pulling Elijah into his arms.

Dom drags the bedcovers up around Elijah. Orlando is murmuring, soft sounds that never quite resolve into words. Elijah moans quietly, unable to stifle his body's blind press into the warmth of Orlando's chest.

Dom inhales sharply, seeing the faint radiance bleeding from Orlando's skin.

Elijah slackens a little, his shivers trailing away. Billy sidles in behind Dom, peering around the tip of Dom's shoulder.

The light shining from Orlando strengthens, streams of gold shifting and twisting in the darkened room. Elijah arches, suddenly tense.

"Fire … "

"No, no Beloved," Orlando breathes. "You're safe."

"I saw him," Elijah insists, his fingers biting deep into the tendons inside Orlando's wrists. "I saw him burning."

"It's a dream," Orlando says, turning his face so that his lips graze Elijah's temple.

"It's real," Elijah says. "It's _real_."

Orlando closes his eyes, and the light floods from him until the whole room is brighter than day. Dom sinks down to his knees and back onto his heels, his hands spread open on his thighs with thumb and forefinger circled. Billy crouches down beside him, lips pressed together in a small smile, eyes sparkling with interest.

Elijah's head tips up and back until it rests heavily on Orlando's shoulder. Elijah's hands fall away from Orlando's wrists as Orlando moves his hands into the graceful gestures of blessing and bestowal.

Dom can hardly breathe; the air is drunk with the scent of flowers and the hum of bees. Billy is grinning, exposing his small sharp teeth.

Orlando opens his eyes, and Dom's heart leaps at the sight of the lightless voids.

Elijah sighs out the last particles of tension and fear in his body, and his eyes slip closed, and his head slides a little to one side as he lies cradled in the Bodhisattva's arms.


	8. The Shade of the Bodhi Tree

Elijah sleeps deeply and peacefully for most of the next day and the one after that, waking only to eat a little and use the bathroom. Orlando sits lotus-wise in the corner armchair, watching Elijah breathe. When Elijah shows signs of stirring, Orlando gets up and goes to find Dom. It's Dom who holds the bowl of rice for Elijah, who hands the water to him, who lets Elijah lean on his arm as he walks shakily to the bathroom, and waits outside the closed door to bring him back to bed.

But Orlando is always there, watching. Elijah looks past Dom, and their eyes connect, and for long beats it's as though neither of them has the strength to turn away. Sometimes it's Orlando who finally looks down, giving Elijah the thin golden skin of his eyelids and the dark line of his eyelashes instead of his eyes. Sometimes it's Elijah who flushes and ducks his head, hiding his confusion behind the bulk of Dom's shoulder as Dom leans over him.

Billy spends much of his time sleeping too, now that he's no longer crouching anxiously at the foot of the bed, flinching every time Elijah moans or shifts restlessly. Billy sleeps curled up in all kinds of odd corners around the apartment: the thick rug on the far side of the bed, the big leather armchair in the sitting room, the low ottoman in the hallway. He sleeps for an hour or two, wakes, stretches and scratches and wanders from room to room for a few minutes, and then picks a new spot to settle down in for the next couple of hours. In his sleep he sometimes quivers and whines; Dom never knows if he should wake him or not.

If Billy wakes while Dom is meditating, he'll come creeping around him, smiling a small secret smile. He'll find a perch on the couch or in the corner, out of Dom's sightline but close at hand. Sometimes, through the white noise rush of his own breath falling in and out of his lungs, Dom will distantly hear Billy whisper gleefully to himself,

'quiet, quiet inside, quiet all the way through,'

and he knows that Billy is talking about him.

Billy eats once early in the morning, and again late in the evening. He likes to take his food into a secluded corner of the apartment, like the unused dining room or the blind turn of the hallway where the coat closet is. He eats quickly, with great relish, and then spends a long time wiping his finger around the inside of his bowl, savoring every last particle. Dom goes out to buy supplies from the cook stalls on the street. Orlando eats whatever's in the carton. They feed Elijah mostly plain rice or noodles; Billy eats the meat, and Dom the vegetables. Once, when Dom has just returned from a shopping expedition, he catches Billy sitting with his face buried in the folds of Dom's gray suede coat.

"Smells good," Billy says without any hint of embarrassment. "Smells like outside."

When Dom finds Billy curled at one end of the couch, shivering in his sleep and making little sounds like stifled sobs, Dom hunkers down next to him and shakes him awake. Billy's eyes snap open, and his lips curl back from his little teeth. Dom startles and loses his balance, falling back on his rump on the rug.

Billy pushes up onto his elbows, his expression smoothing again, and then crumpling into a frown of dismay.

"Oh," he says plaintively. "Why did yeh wake me?"

"I think – you were havin' a nightmare," Dom says, gathering himself onto his knees and rubbing his behind a little. "You were – shaking, and making noises."

"I was dreaming the best dream," Billy says quietly, curling himself up again.

He sleeps without pillow or cover of any kind, his knees drawn up against his elbows and his hands tucked under his cheek.

"What – what did you dream?" Dom asks, his voice so soft that the words are almost lost in the space around him.

"That I was myself," Billy says, his small mouth curling into a radiant smile, and his pale green eyes shining.

Dom swallows deliberately, licks his lips.

"I think," he says, "I think I know what you are, Billy."

Billy grins, tight-lipped.

"You _know_ , but you don't _believe_."

Dom's gaze slides away.

"It's – I thought it was fairytales, children's stories."

"But you believe in the Wheel, in the sameness of life, whether it's in man or beast. Can't yeh believe that it's the same when it's in a man _and_ beast?"

Dom looks back at him.

"What happened to you, Billy?"

Billy wrinkles his nose.

"Viggo. He took my skin from me. That's why I have teh go back, yeh see. I don't know how I'll get it from him, but if I go away, I'll never get it. As long as I'm in his house, there's hope."

"What does he want?" Dom breathes. "What's he trying to make you do?"

"Och, there's nothin' more he wants from me," Billy says, sitting up again. "I'm already sufferin'."

Dom's breath flurries out between his lips, a little stifled sound of pain.

"Why? I don't - "

"The Holy Ones say the world is a trap," Billy says. "A trap that yeh cling to. Yeh have only to let go, and be washed away by the Great River, and become nothing, and be free. Viggo … he can't ever let go. He's woven into the stuff of this world. Do yeh understand? Forever and _ever_. When the life of every other thing has made its circle and become Buddha, Viggo will still be here, alone, for ever and _ever_. That's what it is to be a demon."

Dom fills his lungs shakily.

"He'll do anythin' to keep people here," Billy says, tipping his head to one side and shrugging his shoulders, "teh keep them clinging to the trap. He doesn't want teh be left alone."

Dom's stare slides away again. He fingers the beads hanging on the back of his right hand. He breathes deeply, deliberately, as he does when he meditates.

Billy slithers off the couch onto his knees on the floor next to Dom. He leans in, sniffing unabashedly at the shoulder of Dom's tee shirt. Dom's eyes widen.

"What's - "

Billy sniffles his way up the side of Dom's neck to his ear, which promptly flushes deep red.

"Billy, I don't think - "

Billy pulls back, lips pursed and eyes round with sudden interest. Dom takes a shaky deep breath and shifts his weight back, meaning to unfold himself and stand up.

"Oh," Billy says sharply, and dips forward again to put his face suddenly close to Dom's. "We can, if yeh want to."

Dom's blush wild-fires from his ears to the rest of his face and he tips back from Billy's proximity.

"I don't – I'm not - "

"I'm not sayin' it because I think you can help me," Billy says brightly, crawling over Dom until he's half in Dom's lap, with his hands on Dom's hips. "I'm sayin' it because I want to."

"Billy, I don't think you know what you want," Dom says hastily, trying to fend Billy's hands off his body.

"Yes I fuckin' do," Billy snarls, his little fingers suddenly biting hard enough into Dom's hipbones to make Dom gasp. "I want teh be myself again. I want teh to _be_. I want this bloody thing in my head that says _should_ and _would_ and _could_ teh shut the fuck up."

"I know, Billy, but - "

"It's the only thing that still feels right," Billy says, pushing himself insistently into Dom's lap. "It's the only thing that doesn't hurt."

"Billy, I'm sorry," Dom says softly. "I _can't_ , I've - "

"Yeh want to," Billy says equally quietly, leaning in until he's almost eye to eye with Dom. "I can smell that yeh do."

Dom's brows crease up tightly and he licks over his dry lips.

"Yes, I do want to, but wanting it is foolish, Billy. Desire is what keeps us here, keeps us in the trap - "

"Oh, wantin's not what makes yeh fools. It's wantin' and not havin', when yeh can."

Billy ducks his head and nudges the bridge of his nose against the underside of Dom's chin.

"Yeh smell like the rain at night," Billy murmurs. "Like the things growing deep under the ground. Like the place where the kits lie down."

Dom squeezes his eyes shut and inhales sharply. Billy licks along the long angle of Dom's jaw.

"Don't," Dom breathes; both his hands are on Billy's arms, his fingers digging in deeply, but not actually pushing him away.

Billy's tongue flicks around the outer corner of Dom's mouth. Dom's lips part and he moans softly.

"Lie down," Billy coaxes, pressing him back.

" _No_ ," Dom says, even as he lets Billy over-tip him and ease them both down onto the rug.

Billy's breath goes quick and shallow. He pushes in, licking and nipping at the fleshy tip of Dom's chin. Dom shivers, his eyes still pressed closed and his hands still gripping Billy's arms. Billy shifts, bringing his small hard cock against Dom's hipbone. Dom gasps in a deep breath and his eyes flash open. He drops his hands from Billy's arms and presses his hands flat against the floor.

Billy grins at him, wriggling a little against his hip and thigh. Dom grits his teeth and his body arches tightly. Billy makes an odd little yipping sound low in his throat. Dom lifts one hand very slowly, as if its weight is almost too much to bear.

Dom's fingers thread deeply into the silk-fine strands of Billy's hair. Billy jerks his hips against Dom's side, rhythmic little jabs. Dom opens his mouth, his breath stone-still on his lips. Billy dips his head under the gentle insistent pull of Dom's hand, and licks at the corner of his mouth. Dom turns his head slightly, bringing his lips more fully under Billy's tongue.

Billy fumbles at the waist of Dom's leather jeans, the quick jerk of his body against Dom's making him awkward. He gets Dom's top button open and splits the zipper enough to get his fingers inside, to find Dom's skin and hair and hard-on. He twitches his top lip in satisfaction as he pushes his hand further into Dom's jeans.

Dom tenses, his spine lifting in taut bow from the floor. He gives a stifled cry, like a sound of pure pain, and comes in slow wracking pulses. Billy gives a breathless little growl and rubs himself harder against Dom's hip. His breath breaks and he shivers, and the force of his movement falters and then gradually fades.

Dom takes his hand from Billy's hair and drops it over his own eyes.

"Shit," he says, his voice thick and unsteady. "Sorry … sorry."

Billy frowns dubiously.

"I didn't – I'm - _shit_ ," Dom says again.

He takes his hand away, looking at Billy with slightly red-rimmed eyes.

"It's been a while," Dom smiles shakily. "It's – I can do better than that."


	9. A Koan of the Bodhisattva Lotus Eyes

Pearly morning light fills the bedroom. Elijah lies in the middle of Orlando's enormous bed. He's wearing a white tee shirt, the thin fabric twisted a little around his torso. The bruises lining the insides of his arms have faded to no more than golden-green shadows on his skin. His cheeks are flushed in the warmth of sleep.

"Elijah," Orlando says gently, leaning over him.

Elijah flinches, then stirs and stretches. His eyelids lift slowly and he frowns.

"What's – what time is it?"

"Almost nine," Orlando says, moving back a little.

Elijah lifts his left hand in front of his face, consulting the watch on his wrist more because he can than from any need to confirm Orlando's answer.

"Mnn," he says, letting his arm fall back onto the bed. "Where's Dom?"

"He's still sleeping. I thought you might like to get up and get dressed, go out for a bit."

Elijah's eyes widen.

"Really? Yeah, fuck, yeah, I'd love to."

"Come on, then."

Elijah sits up and scrambles off the bed, scrubbing his fingertips through his hair. Orlando sits down on the bed, one hand smoothing over the heated patch of sheet where Elijah had been lying.

"Where are we going?" Elijah asks, stripping his tee shirt off and pulling on a different one.

"Wherever you like," Orlando says, his gaze flicking along the white curve of Elijah's ribs as he pulls the new tee shirt down over his torso. "You wanna get breakfast? Coffee?"

" _Coffee_ ," Elijah says with conviction. "I'd sell my immortal fucking soul for a cup of coffee."

He drags his jeans on over the checkered boxers he'd been sleeping in.

"No you wouldn't."

Elijah grins, working his buttons closed.

"Okay, only if I really had to."

He pulls on clean socks and the pair of black work boots waiting under the chair in the corner. He scratches at his chin and jaw, feeling the velvet of his skin critically.

"I should shave, but the hell with it. Come on, I've been waiting almost seven weeks for this cup of coffee."

The morning's gray but not particularly cold when they step outside onto the street. Orlando leaves his coat hanging open and takes his scarf from his neck, draping it on Elijah instead.

"Thanks," Elijah grins, flipping the ends over his shoulders and buttoning one button on his navy wool pea coat. "Where should we go?"

"There's a Starbucks right down the street," Orlando says, pointing.

"Oh, God, you know me so well," Elijah laughs, and then flushes a little. "Except for the part where … you don't," he amends.

"Come on," Orlando says gently, and starts walking.

The morning crush is over, but the streets are still busy with shoppers and sightseers. Elijah pushes his hands down into his coat pockets and tips his head up, staring at the buildings and traffic lights and birds perched on the skinny and dusty city trees.

"Fuck, there's just - _so much_ of everything," he says, half-charmed and half-overwhelmed.

Orlando tugs Elijah's sleeve to bring him aside on the sidewalk, out of the flow of people and towards the door of the coffee bar. They go in, Orlando first, Elijah in his wake.

"How's Billy doing?" Elijah asks, when they're standing in the line waiting their turn.

"Billy's gonna be fine," Orlando says, his gaze fixed on the price list behind the counter. "Tell the lady what you want."

"The biggest damn coffee you've got, please," Elijah smiles.

"And a tall triple shot latte," Orlando says, handing over a crisp banknote.

Elijah turns his head away, staring thoughtfully out of the window; Orlando watches him.

"It's weird," Elijah says, "to think there've been people coming here every day for the last seven weeks, buying coffee, drinking it … not knowing that it _was_ seven weeks … "

"Do you want to sit or stroll?" Orlando asks quietly, nudging Elijah's arm with his knuckles where they're wrapped around Elijah's coffee.

"Stroll," Elijah says at once, taking his cup from Orlando. "It feels good to be moving."

They go back out to the street and start walking slowly in no particular direction. Elijah lifts his drink to his lips and takes a cautious sip.

"Aw – _fuck yeah_ ," he groans.

Orlando ducks his head and smiles.

"The last time I went that long without coffee, I was like _two_ ," Elijah protests.

Orlando reaches out with his own cup and touches the rims of the plastic lids together.

"Cheers," he says.

Elijah nods, smiling a little too, and takes another equally appreciative but quieter sip.

"So," he says after a block or so, "are you planning to ever tell me anything about this? About why this happened to me? To you?"

Orlando drinks some coffee.

"It's complicated."

"Yeah, I took that part for granted," Elijah says.

"I – a long time ago – a _really_ long time ago - something happened to me, something – I kinda had this - _moment_. I felt like I understood the world, like it made sense to me. All of it. Everything," Orlando says, his hesitation gradually giving way to quiet intensity as he finds his voice.

Elijah is half-watching where they're walking, half-glancing at Orlando's profile.

"And I wanted _so much_ to just keep feeling that," Orlando goes on. "But, even more … I wanted other people to feel it, too. I wanted _everyone_ to feel the way I did at that moment."

They've come to the crosswalk opposite one entrance to the Rin Shi Park. They stop on the corner, Orlando turning slightly toward Elijah.

"I wanted to save the world, Elijah," he says softly. "But I know now that that's not gonna happen."

Elijah tenses, pulling himself upright as if bracing himself for a blow.

"What do you – what do you mean?"

Orlando lifts his free hand, needlessly smoothing the curling edge of his scarf where it lies on Elijah's coat collar.

"Go home, Elijah."

" _What?_ No. It's only eight days, today's the eighth day and it's not even ten in the morning yet. There's the rest of today, and all of tomorrow to go."

"It doesn't matter," Orlando smiles. "It won't make any difference. Viggo's already won."

" _No_ ," Elijah snaps. "I'm not _letting him_ win. I'm staying; I'm staying the full nine days, just like you promised him."

Orlando's hand moves from Elijah's clothing to his face, cupping the smooth curve of Elijah's cheek in his palm.

"Don't you see?" he asks, bending his head so that he's looking down into Elijah's up cast eyes. "The fact that you'd stay with me when I'm telling you to go just makes me love you even more."

"Shit," Elijah hisses. "Orlando – I _have to_ see my family. I need them."

"I know," Orlando smiles.

"Then, come with me. I'm not just leaving you here so he can do – whatever it is he can do – to you."

"That's not possible," Orlando says mildly.

Elijah huffs out an angry breath, frowning hard.

"All right. All right. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna to go home, and let my family see that I'm okay. And in a couple of days I'll come back and - "

"I won't be here," Orlando cuts in.

Elijah flinches into silence, staring up at Orlando with wounded disbelief.

"Wha – I don't - _why_? Why are you doing this?" he demands.

Orlando closes his eyes for an instant, his brows gathering a little. He opens his eyes again, and his expression smoothes, and he bends his head further down. Elijah takes a deep breath and parts his lips a little, accepting the first warm brush of Orlando's mouth. Someone passing them by jostles a little against Orlando's shoulder, and the touch pushes their mouths together a little harder. Orlando fingers flex over the bones of Elijah's temple and cheek and jaw. Elijah pushes up onto his toes, straining into the contact, then abruptly jerks away again.

"Elijah, what's - "

"I can't, I can't," Elijah says breathlessly. "This is – it's too soon."

"Go home," Orlando breathes. "It's all right, Elijah. It's over now. Go home."

Orlando steps back, his gaze still riveted on Elijah's face. Elijah opens his mouth, but he doesn't speak. Orlando backs away another step, and another and then turns and crosses the street towards the park.

Elijah blinks, the tears trembling on his eyelashes finally overbalancing and splashing down his cheeks. He squeezes his eyes shut for a second or two, gritting his teeth. Then his eyes flash open and he takes a breath.

"Orlando," he calls over the noise of the traffic.

But Orlando's gone. Elijah scans the street and the park lawn, but there's no sign of a tall black-coated figure. He's just _gone_.


	10. The Thread Breaks

"No, no, don't," Billy complains, his whole body shifting under the strong steady thrust of Dom's cock into his ass. "Don't hold it, don't, I'll come if you don't hold it."

Dom, kneeling between Billy's lifted thighs, one hand gripping the root of Billy's cock tightly and the other supporting the lean curve of Billy's behind, huffs out a sound of gentle amusement.

"I don't want you to come yet," he says. "I want you to wait. I want you to wait for me."

"Why should I wait?" Billy demands anxiously, arching his hips up off the bed and holding the tension until his thighs begin to shake. "Why do yeh want me to wait?"

"Because if you wait, it'll feel better when you do come," Dom says reasonably.

Billy looks skeptical.

"Do you like this?" Dom asks, dropping his face closer to Billy's and giving the push of his hips a slower richer nuance. "Do you like how this feels?"

"Aye, aye I do," Billy says, his little hands tightening on the tops of Dom's arms. "It feels like I've eaten the sun."

Dom laughs and rubs the side of his close-shorn head against Billy's bare chest.

"Then just lie still, relax, and I'll keep doing this for as long as you like," Dom says.

Billy doesn't look entirely convinced, but he does let his body slacken down onto the mattress, his thighs lolling open on either side of Dom's hips.

Dom closes his eyes for a moment, smiling.

"That's good, you feel softer inside, easier."

Billy chews on his lower lip and frowns, his toes curling and flexing as he tries not to react to the bundling heat in his belly. Dom opens his eyes again, grinning. Billy arches, tightening himself down on Dom's cock.

"Ah ah, relax," Dom insists, stilling for an instant.

Billy hacks out a sound of frustration and impatience, but he obeys. Dom's breath snaps out of his nostrils with each thrust of his hips. He tips his head up, looking down at Billy from under his eyelashes. Billy squirms, and then hastily stills before Dom can do more than raise an eyebrow in warning. Billy pushes the heel of one hand into the hollow of his own belly, above the swell of his pubic bone.

"There's something – something's going teh - "

Dom grins, quickening his pace and introducing a cunning little jerk to the end of each thrust.

"Relax, Billy. Don't chase it, let it come to you," he says a little breathlessly.

Billy frowns, but there's also a logic to that he can understand. He gathers in on himself, tucking his chin down and pressing his lips together. Dom runs his free hand up and over the narrow curves of Billy's hip and thigh.

"That's right," Dom says breathlessly. "Now I can feel it, just a little flutter, right there - "

Billy's breath shatters into a hard-edged panting.

"Oh – I'm going teh – I'm going teh - "

"Yes, you are, even if you try not to," Dom says urgently, withholding the last few thrusts that Billy needs so desperately. "Relax, Billy, relax."

Billy shouts out his frustration, but his body is strung so helplessly between Dom's cock and Dom's hands that he has no choice but to obey. He slackens again, his limbs trembling with the effort.

"Okay, this time, Billy, this time," Dom croons, settling his weight on both fists and working his hips relentlessly.

Billy gasps, but his body stays spilled softly on the mattress as Dom thrusts smoothly and swiftly.

"Oh – oh."

"Yeah, just let it."

Billy cries out, a deep-chested grunt of disbelief and delight as his body revolts, his cock disgorging a thick stream of semen that ropes onto his belly almost as high as his breastbone. He gasps for breath, his body shuddering in the aftershocks of his orgasm.

Dom pulls out, hastily kneels up and takes his cock in his fist. He rubs quickly, and it's only a few seconds more before he tenses and squeezes his eyes shut. His cock pulses, his seed running between his fingers and dropping onto Billy's thigh.

"Oh – okay," Dom gasps as he opens his eyes. "How was that?"

Billy is staring at him with solemn eyes.

"It was okay, wasn't it? It felt good?" Dom asks.

"It felt good," Billy says quietly. "It felt – better than anything."

"So, why so grim?" Dom presses, curling one hand tenderly behind Billy's knee.

"It's stopped now," Billy says bleakly. "And I feel … sad."

"Oh God – Billy – I - "

Dom closes his eyes to collect himself, and then opens them to meet Billy's gaze.

"People – humans – often do feel like that, afterwards. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - "

Billy nods. Dom hisses in a deep breath between clenched teeth.

"Billy. If you want, if it's what you want, I'll take you back to Viggo. Right now."

 _cut_

The screens on the garden side of the house are standing open, despite the splatters of rain that are starting to fall. Billy goes up the low stone steps to the garden and then up the couple of wooden steps into the house. Dom follows more hesitantly.

The large bedroom is deserted. The two men make their way through the narrow hallways to where Elijah used to sleep.

Viggo is standing with his back to the doorway, silent and still, staring at the half-open screen and the wooden walkway and the rough grassy slope beyond.

"I came back," Billy says, crossing the threshold.

Viggo turns his head slightly, watching as Billy comes around to stand in front of him.

"And you brought someone with you," Viggo says. "Cunning little fox."

"He didn't bring me," Dom says firmly, crossing the threshold as Viggo turns more fully to face him. "I brought him."

Viggo tips his head to one side a little and takes a deep savoring breath through his nostrils.

"You smell of sin, Phra Dominic," he says, his lips curling back from his teeth a little. "Are you sure your soul is in a condition to withstand me?"

"I don't mean to withstand you," Dom says evenly, taking a step nearer.

"What is this?" Viggo asks, darting an electric blue glance at Billy.

"I didn't ask him teh," Billy says hastily. "I didn't ask him fer help a'tall."

Viggo swings his gaze back to Dom.

"Billy's already suffering," Dom says. "It can't be much amusement, seeing the same misery day in and day out."

"It's not," Viggo answers at once. "But I'm sadly starved for variety, living as I do in this house."

"Then trade," Dom says tightly. "Him for me."

Billy goes suddenly still, staring at Dom with wide wondering eyes.

"Whatever you want, in return for what Billy wants," Dom says.

"Maybe I should have been fucking _you_ ," Viggo says to Billy, "it seems to be a remarkably persuasive experience."

"I didn't ask him," Billy insists.

Viggo walks up to Dom. Dom shudders in a deep breath and sets his chin high.

"Tshin Tshen monastery teaches small wheel doctrine," Viggo says pleasantly. "Only beings with souls can attain enlightenment. Nogitsune is an earth spirit; he has no soul. You're sacrificing yourself for an animal."

"Rin Shi temple teaches Great Wheel," Dom says softly. "That all life reaches Nirvana in the end."

"So, which do you believe, Phra Dominic?"

"Neither," Dom breathes, letting his line of sight slide past Viggo to Billy. "There is no wheel, no soul, no enlightenment. It is all one, all Buddha, all Nogitsune."

Viggo leans in, lips parted, and sips the air from in front of Dom's face.

"Exquisite," he murmurs.

He steps back, lifting one hand toward the door.

"Come, I'll give you what you came for."

Dom glances at Billy, whose face is drawn with mingled hope and dread. Dom looks away, and follows Viggo out.

Viggo leads them to another room, bare except for the matting on the floor and a small niche in the middle of the interior wall. A black lacquer chest about a foot on each side sits in the bottom of the niche. Viggo crosses the room, picks the chest up, and brings it to Dom. Billy whimpers quietly.

Viggo puts the chest gently into Dom's hands.

"I don't - "

"It's mine," Billy says shakily.

Dom glances at Viggo, but the demon's eyes are opaque as blue enamel. Dom hunkers down, sets the chest on the matting, and flips the brass catch up. He lifts the lid.

Billy moans softly.

Dom's first impression is that the black interior of the box is filled with molten copper. Then he resolves the bright and gleaming into folds, into fur. He reaches in with his right hand, and his fingers sink into a pelt softer than silk, warmer than breath, smoother than steel.

He inhales deeply, and lifts the thing out. The folds slide through his fingers, the color shifting and shining, russet and gold and red.

"Mine," Billy breathes.

Dom turns to him. Billy is staring at the thing in Dom's hands with unabashed desire.

"Take it," Dom says, extending his hands, the beautiful pelt draping between his palms.

Billy's eyes dart to his.

"Take it," Dom says again.

Billy glances at Viggo, and then back at Dom.

"He'll – he'll do somethin' terrible to you," Billy warns, his voice thin and high even as he steps closer to Dom, both hands out.

"I know," Dom says, his smile breaking wide as Billy's little fingers grasp the pelt.

It falls liquidly from Dom's hands into Billy's, and Dom's fingers flex gracefully on emptiness.

"Why?" Billy asks, frowning intently. "Why would yeh do this?"

"To see you happy again," Dom says.

"Charming sentiment," Viggo purrs at Dom's ear. "Now say your goodbyes."

Dom flinches, but then he looks back at Billy.

"Put it on," he says.

Billy looks at the thing in his hands and gnaws his lip.

"Put it on, and let me see you as you should be," Dom says.

Billy hesitates for a moment, but only for a moment. He nods, and smiles a little uncertainly.

He shakes the folds out of the pelt, letting it hang loose, and it seems to Dom that it grows more voluminous. He glimpses flashes of pure white as Billy turns the skin from side to side. Billy bends, lifting the furs to his face and dipping his face into the furs and –

Dom blinks –

The skin of the world shivers.

Dom gasps. The fox shakes itself from its sharply pointed muzzle down its rust red haunches to the thick brush of its white-tipped tail. It braces itself, paws set four-square on the matting, its jade green eyes wide and wild as it stares up at Dom.

Dom takes a step forward.

The fox leaps away, around the edge of the screen, and bounds over the walkway and dives into the grass. Dom watches, open-mouthed.

The fox stops on a small mound of earth, whipping its tail and twitching its whiskers as it samples the air. After a moment it sits up and begins to lick at the thick ruff of fur under its chin.

 _Orlando gets out of his car and walks around the other car already parked on the dirt courtyard. He goes up the steps to the garden, and circles around towards the other side of the house._

"And now," Viggo says, coming to stand a little behind and beside Dom, "it's time to pay for your pleasures. Can you guess what they'll cost you?"

"My life," Dom says steadily. "I will lose my life."

Viggo lifts his hand, and sets it on Dom's waist.

"Yes," he whispers, stroking slowly and smoothly down Dom's side, "yes."

Dom gasps, his bones and muscles convulsing inside his skin.

 _Orlando falters, grabbing hold of the porch post to steady himself._

"Run," Viggo grins, crouching in the open doorway and letting the small slender gray body spill from his hands onto the walkway outside.

The hare crouches for a second, gray eyes shining like glass. The fox on the mound tenses, folding its body down slowly until its belly is on the dirt.

"Run!" Viggo yells, and the hare springs away in blind alarm.

The fox explodes out of its crouch, a vivid russet streak in the grass. The hare swerves wildly, left then right, haunches twisting powerfully. The fox runs straight, ignoring feint and double feint, and slams into the hare's side. The hare is thrown sideways; the fox snaps its head around, jaws wide, and snatches the hare out of the air. The hare shrieks, a high thin sound of mortal terror, before the fox shakes it savagely. The hare's neck breaks with a succulent crunch; the fox throws the body down in the grass and sinks its teeth into the soft belly, ripping blood-black guts out through the rose-gray fur.

 _"May Buddha take his soul into his hands," Orlando breathes, pushing himself upright and walking unsteadily to where Viggo stands in the open doorway._

"You're too late," Viggo says with a smile. "He's already dead."

"Come out to me," Orlando says.

Viggo's smile curdles.

"I cannot."

"No, you cannot," Orlando says, stepping up onto the walkway. "You _can_ not. You are confined in this house more securely than a man's thoughts are confined in his head. No matter how much you desire it, you cannot cross this threshold."

"Isn't gloating against the nature of a Bodhisattva?" Viggo says sourly.

"I'm stating a fact," Orlando counters, moving forwards until the toes of his boots touch the underside of the threshold step.

"Well, I can't come out, but you can't come in," Viggo says. "And so here we stand, age after age."

"I can't come in and remain clean," Orlando says. "I can't come in, and remain a Bodhisattva."

Viggo twitches his eyelids, dismissive and curious at the same time.

"You're still stating the obvious," he shrugs. "Surprise me for once, Na Goshi."

Orlando's lips soften into the slightest suggestion of a smile. He shifts, never taking his eyes off Viggo as he steps up, off the walkway, across the threshold of the demon's house, and into the room.


	11. Buddha Heart, Warrior Soul

"What is this? What are you doing?" Viggo demands, taking a step back.

"I'm breaking the stalemate."

He moves past Viggo, glancing down at the empty chest on the floor as he steps around it.

"I'm giving up," Orlando says. "Letting go."

Viggo turns, eyes narrowed.

"You're lying."

"That should please you, then," Orlando smiles, glancing at Viggo from the corners of his eyes.

Viggo looks him up and down, suspicion blurring a little into uncertainty.

"Keep misstepping like this and you'll never win your freedom, Lotus Eyes."

Orlando's smile twitches into something slighter and more tender. Viggo moves closer, peering into his face.

"You fell in love with the boy."

"It's why you chose him, isn't it? Because I would?"

"I hoped you'd struggle a little harder," Viggo says, moving away again.

Orlando remains where he is, chin lifted and hands at his sides.

"I don't intend to struggle at all," he says softly.

Viggo flashes a hard blue glance at him. Orlando blinks, pulling his lower lip between his teeth a little. Viggo comes back, slowly and warily.

"What - "

"I will give you what you want," Orlando says clearly.

Viggo's stare flickers over Orlando and comes to rest on his left hand, half-hidden in the folds of his black coat. Viggo reaches out, across the space between them. He hesitates, fingers extended, and then he closes the gap, his thumb rasping against Orlando's hand. Viggo's eyes snap upwards. Orlando lets his chin drift down, so he's looking up at Viggo from under his brows. Viggo encircles Orlando's wrist.

 _The restless flutter of firelight picking bright and shadow out of the rough cloth draped over Orlando's head, out of his lean bearded face and hollowed eyes._

"Gautama Na Goshi … " Viggo murmurs.

 _The warm glow of a hundred candle flames, turning the naked curve of Orlando's skull to amber, and the folds of his saffron robe on his bare shoulder to pure gold._

" … Lotus Eyes … "

 _The hard glare of sunlight, striking brightness from the steel-plates of Orlando's armored tunic, and from the slender curving blade of the sword in his hand._

" … Destroyer of Demons."

"You've never called by my true name before," Orlando says.

"Nor you me, by mine."

"Mara," Orlando breathes, his lips parting over the syllables as if they have sharp edges.

Viggo inhales, consuming the sound off the air. He lifts his other hand, his strong thin fingers caging Orlando's jaw.

"You still think you can win," Viggo says.

"I wanted to save world, but it's not mine to save. Dominic taught me that."

Viggo snorts.

"He fucked the little fox and paid for his pleasure."

His expression hardens, his grip on Orlando tightening.

"What about you? Did you have the boy?"

Orlando looks down, giving Viggo nothing but the thin golden skin of his eyelids. Viggo leans even closer, sipping the breath Orlando exhales through parted lips. Viggo shudders.

"I smell him on your mouth," he whispers. "I _know_ his taste, Lotus Eyes. Is that what I'll taste on your lips?"

Orlando lifts his eyes.

"Yes."

For a moment Viggo looks disbelieving, but then he smiles, and opens his mouth, and sets it carefully over Orlando's. Orlando's eyes flicker closed, and he sways a little in Viggo's grip.

The chill of the room seems to relent a little, and there's the faintest scent, like wet earth warming after a hard freeze.

Viggo draws back slightly. Orlando's skin is tinted as if the light falling on his face is the last rich rays of sunset. His eyes open, and they are hugely dilated. Viggo frowns.

"What - "

"Shh," Orlando breathes, twisting one hand in the front of Viggo's sweater and reeling him back in.

Viggo snarls softly against Orlando's lips, and bites into his mouth. The two men stagger, catching at each other to steady themselves as they push together. Orlando begins to bleed light from the pores of his skin. The room is filled with the smell of sugary smoke, and the air starts to hum around them.

Viggo thrusts his fingers into Orlando's hair and wrenches Orlando's head so that he can grind his mouth more roughly against him. Orlando yields, only the flex of his fingers on Viggo's clothing betraying anything but surrender.   
The light streaming from Orlando turns the room white, and the air sings. Orlando's eyes are utterly black. Then something snaps; the light is gone, and Viggo jerks back. Orlando breathes deeply and blinks. Gradually his eyes resolve again to black and deep brown and white.

"What have you done?" Viggo asks narrowly.

"Dominic made me understand," Orlando says. "The world is saved one tiny piece at a time."

"What's this? Great Wheel doctrine from you too, Lotus Eyes? Or are you going to tell me there is no wheel?"

"Oh, it's worse than that. There's no doctrine. And _no Lotus Eyes_."

"What are you talking about?" Viggo scowls.

His gaze flickers from Orlando's face to his own hand. He rubs his fingertips together, frowning hard.

"All that I was, I have let go," Orlando says.

"I – I'm cold," Viggo says sharply. " _What have you done?_ "

"Reached the place I needed to get to."

"No! You're in love with him. You can't love one creature more than another and be Bodhisattva. You can't stand in this place, and be _Bodhisattva_."

"I'm not."

 _Sunrise hazes a soft gleam off dirty armor, off the helmet slung beside his massive saddle, off the harness buckles of his war horse. He turns the horse towards the brightening sky, towards the east._

"I'm just Orlando."

Viggo shakes his head, but his attention slides back to his hands. He flattens his palms, staring at the creases in his skin.

"I'm _cold_."

"The wheel is real enough, isn't it, when you're on it?" Orlando says suddenly, angrily. "Like me. _And you_."

"No!" Viggo yells.

Orlando steps back.

"Have a nice life, Viggo. And after that, have another … and another … "

"No! _NO!_ "

Viggo crashes to his knees, clutching his body with both arms.

Orlando shudders out a deep breath, steps around him, and walks out of the house without looking back.

 

 _Two days later._

Orlando is leaning over the black marble washbasin in the bathroom, wiping a wet hand across his mouth and chin, when there's a knock on the front door of the apartment. He straightens, his wet-tipped curls dropping dark spots of water onto his gray tee shirt. At a second knock, louder this time, his glance flicks to his reflection in the mirror. He jerks a towel off the rail next to the washbasin and walks out.

He strides barefoot down the hallway, toweling his face and the nape of his neck as he goes. He flips the door latch unlocked and pulls the door open.

Elijah's head comes up sharply, his eyes rounding.

Orlando lets the towel fall to his side.

"You – you're here," Elijah says blankly. And then, his voice focusing into anger, "you said you wouldn't _be here_."

"I said, I wouldn't be _me_ ," Orlando says quietly.

Elijah exhales hard through his nostrils, his brows gathering into a frown. Suddenly he moves forward across the threshold with such conviction that Orlando just gives way, backing up a step.

"You're still the you I'm in love with," Elijah says.

He pushes forwards, winding his arms around Orlando's neck and dragging him in and down, so inexorable that Orlando stumbles a little and just yields. He bends his head, and Elijah shoves his chin up, and there's a bruising glance of teeth against lips. They shift slightly, and suddenly there's a perfect fit between Elijah's mouth and Orlando's. They push into each other, Elijah's fingers pulling at Orlando's nape and shoulders.

Elijah arches, and Orlando curves over him, and they tip and stumble again and Elijah's back comes up hard against the doorframe, knocking his breath out in a grunt and bumping his lip hard against Orlando's teeth.

"Shit, sorry," Orlando says breathlessly, catching Elijah's face between his hands.

"It's fine, forget it," Elijah murmurs, digging his fingers into Orlando's curls and pulling him back in.

Elijah rocks gently against the open doorway and stretches upwards, his whole body flexing into the kiss. Orlando dips his hips, scooping his body against Elijah's, pushing against him. Elijah groans loudly enough to break the connection between their lips.

"Elijah," Orlando frowns, pulling back.

"No," Elijah says sharply. "I don't care – you can tell me _afterwards_ why this can't happen, why I can't have you. _Afterwards_."

Orlando's frown tightens, but Elijah grips him again, fingers digging into the vulnerable curve of his nape.

"I want you," Elijah husks.

They push together again, slick and swift. Orlando fists the collar of Elijah's coat, clawing at the rough wool. Elijah drags his fingertips around the curve of Orlando's throat, over the ridge of his collarbone, down the hitching plane of his chest. Elijah presses his palm into the muscle, pushing Orlando off in a breathless smear of lips and tongue.

"I want you," he says again.

The faint squeak of damp shoes on floor tiles make them both turn their heads. The elderly Chinese lady passing in the hallway looks at them in pursed-lipped disapproval. Elijah drops his gaze, his cheeks flushing a little darker.

"Get in here," Orlando grins, pulling him by the sleeve across the threshold again.

They collide, curling around each other. Orlando gropes with one outstretched hand, finds the edge of the door again, and throws it closed. They blunder another step or so and Elijah bumps into the wall. He slides sideways, dragging Orlando with him by the fusion of lips and tongues and teeth. Orlando gets both hands inside Elijah's coat, skinning the garment off. It falls at Elijah's feet and he heels it mostly out of the way.

They make an unsteady sort of progress along the wall until Elijah's hip collides with the console table and sets the massive cloisonné vase rocking slightly on its base.

"Shit," Elijah laughs, and Orlando grins open-mouthed against the sound.

"S'okay."

"I want you," Elijah growls, pushing his hip sharply against Orlando.

Orlando gasps, his eyes squeezing shut for a second.

"Come on," he says.

He grabs Elijah by the hand and jerks him down the hallway, across the expanse of living-room rug to the door of the bedroom. Orlando reaches for the door; Elijah's right behind him and that momentary halt tangles them together again, Orlando backed against the door with Elijah pushing into him.

For a breathless moment it's enough to lean like that. Orlando slides down a couple of inches, feet braced wider apart, and suddenly they're cock to cock, a bruising shock of pleasure.

"Now," Elijah says.

Orlando slaps at the door handle, fumbling it open, and the door swings wide under his weight and they both stumble, grabbing at each other. They fall the couple of steps to the bed, sprawling, Orlando on his back and Elijah half on him.

"Love, Beloved," Orlando says breathlessly, his eyes falling closed as Elijah straddles him, bending to kiss him again.

Orlando's fingertips travel lightly along Elijah's sides, over the knit of his sweater to the graze of denim over his hips, then back up, pushing at his sweater until he feels bare skin. Elijah pulls back, kneeling up over Orlando's thighs. He stares into Orlando's eyes as he draws his sweater up over his head and throws it off the side of the bed.

Orlando reaches up and touches him on the breastbone. Elijah's eyes narrow, and his chest shudders. Orlando glances up at his face.

"Elijah. We don't have to, if you're – if it's too soon."

Elijah's jaw tightens and he shakes his head, a fragmentary gesture of negation.

"You know what? Right now … right now I want it to be about you and me. I don't want him to take this from me. I don't want to _give_ him this."

Orlando presses his lips together and nods carefully. Elijah's expression softens again; he moves away, slips off the edge of the bed and stands, looking down at Orlando. He heels his boots off, unbuttoning his jeans at the same time. Orlando pushes up onto his elbows, watching him solemnly. Elijah pushes his jeans and shorts down to his thighs and pulls the whole mess and both socks off in a knot. He crawls back onto the bed.

"Beautiful," Orlando breathes, as Elijah straddles him again.

Orlando's fingers retrace their path, this time over skin.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before," Elijah smiles slyly.

"I haven't seen you when you're - "

" – excited?" Elijah says, letting his knees slide apart and his hips tip forwards so that his erection nudges against the denim covering Orlando's inner thigh.

"Mine," Orlando amends, both hands tracing over the crests of Elijah's hipbones and down the tendoned-valleys into the dark curls of hair at the base of his belly.

Elijah's breath trembles out, and the two men stare at each other.

"Teach me," Orlando says, the tip of one thumb testing the velvet cling of Elijah's skin where it's stretched over hard flesh. "Show me."

"I think you know what I want," Elijah breathes, reaching down and grasping Orlando's wrist, guiding his hand further back between Elijah's legs. "I want you - _here_."

He curls his fingers along Orlando's, pressing Orlando's fingertips.

"I want you in me."

Orlando snaps out a breath, dragging his fingers over Elijah's skin.

"We need – something to ease the way," he says.

Elijah glances at the black lacquered chest that serves as a nightstand, then back at Orlando. Elijah flickers a frown.

"Don't you have – okay, no, I guess you wouldn't."

Elijah scrambles up again.

"Don't move – don't breath, okay? I'll be right back."

Orlando's shoulders lift as he fills his lungs deeply. He presses his lips together and nods. Elijah grins, and runs out of the room.

He skitters into the kitchen and starts wrenching open cupboards. He ignores cans and cartons, digging jars and bottles from the backs of shelves. He grabs a jar, knocking several others over, and runs back.

"Saved," he crows, launching himself and the jar onto the bed and landing in Orlando's arms with enough force to knock the dregs of exhausted air out of Orlando's lungs.

"Saved," Elijah murmurs, sliding his mouth against Orlando's.

Orlando's hands move greedily over Elijah's skin.

"Saved," Elijah breathes, pushing Orlando's tee shirt up on his stomach so they touch, skin to skin.

Orlando exhales against Elijah's ear, his thumbs under the corners of Elijah's jaw. Their mouths slide together, and for a long moment there's only the warm tidal fall of their breath.

Elijah caresses the thin cotton of Orlando's tee shirt higher on his ribs and up over his shoulder blades. Orlando rolls his spine off the mattress a little and they both draw the garment off him.

Orlando reaches up, his thumb smearing over the flushed and swollen skin of Elijah's lips. Elijah reaches down, his fingers closing around the top button of Orlando's jeans. The snick of the button coming out of the buttonhole is electrically loud in the silence of their held breath. Elijah reaches further down, finds the next button. Orlando shivers in a deep breath as Elijah's knuckles graze against his erection.

Elijah's jaw tenses. He pulls the remaining two buttons, and slides his hand into the warm space. Orlando's hips shift under his hand; he turns his palm and wraps his fingers around Orlando's shaft. Orlando lifts his head, closing his eyes and pressing his face into the curve of Elijah's neck.

"Do you know how this goes?" Elijah asks softly.

"I remember," Orlando says. "You make me remember … everything."

Elijah pushes the soft denim down off Orlando's hips. Orlando rolls away a little, palming his jeans further down and then arching up on his shoulders and feet so he can strip them the rest of the way off. Elijah sets his hand gently on the curved muscle of Orlando's left thigh; Orlando watches his expression intently.

Elijah moves his hand onto the taut skin of Orlando's hipbone, and then shifts forwards, settling his body against Orlando. They both gasp. Elijah twists enough to snag the jar from where it's rolled into the slight dip against his left leg.

"This is gonna get messy," he smiles, rolling away from Orlando a little.

He turns the lid of the jar open. The honey has a heady, smoky scent of blossoms. Orlando reaches over Elijah's shoulder and dips two fingers into the clear amber fluid. He lifts his hand, letting the honey stream back into the jar until only a thread spins from his fingertips. Elijah rounds his spine, drawing his uppermost thigh into a bend to expose the cleft of his behind.

"Elijah," Orlando breathes, and when Elijah looks back over his shoulder, Orlando lifts his fingers to Elijah's mouth and smears a gloss of honey across his parted lips.

Orlando dips his mouth to Elijah's, and they kiss the sweetness onto each other's tongues.

Their lips part, sticky and smiling. Orlando coats his fingers again, and this time he paints a gleaming stripe down over Elijah's right nipple, the rosy skin peaking against his fingertips. Elijah tips his head back and his eyes flicker almost closed. Orlando curls over him, licking and sucking the honey off his flesh. Elijah gasps open-mouthed, sinking his fingers into Orlando's curls.

"I want you," he breathes.

Orlando lifts his head, dark-eyed and red-lipped.

"Now," Elijah whispers.

Orlando reaches across him, and dips his fingers to the second knuckles. He lets the first excess of honey run off again, then deftly lifts and curls his fingers. Elijah bows his spine and lifts his knee a little further, offering himself.

Orlando's fingers smooth along the heated crease of Elijah's behind, easing the warmth and softness of the honey into the folds of fine skin.

"I love you," Elijah says quietly, turning his face against the pillow and letting his eyes slide closed.

Orlando reaches one more time, dipping his fingers.

"Set it down," he says softly against Elijah's ear.

Elijah leans, flushing a little, and puts the honey jar out of the way on the chest next to the bed.

"Is this right?" Orlando asks, his fingertips working slow circles against Elijah's opening.

Elijah sighs out his breath.

"Yes," he says.

Orlando's fingers go, and there's the smoother blunter nudge of the head of his cock between Elijah's buttocks.

"Like this?"

" _Yes_."

There's a subtle shift of weight, Elijah pushing back and Orlando canting his hips forward. Elijah exhales, the heel of his hand pushing into the pillows as he yields to the stretch of Orlando's cock pushing into him. Orlando braces himself on one elbow, and hooks the other hand over the bone-fine curve of Elijah's shoulder, holding him in place.

"Yes," Elijah hisses. "Come on."

Orlando presses forward. Elijah cries out, a stunned shaking sound from deep in his chest.

"Am I hurting - "

" _No_ ," Elijah grinds, his whole body flexing back against Orlando. "Come on. I want it, it's just … so much."

Orlando drops his head, pressing his mouth against the thin skin behind Elijah's right ear. Orlando drives his hips slowly but steadily forward, and Elijah's body yields, forcing another guttural sound of pleasure from his open mouth.

Orlando pulls Elijah back against him, splaying his sugar-sticky fingers along Elijah's jaw.

"Yes," Elijah murmurs. "Yes."

They kiss, the contact awkward and off-kilter as Orlando pulls his hips back, pauses, pushes forwards again in a smooth stroke that ends with a percussive little grunt of an exhalation from Elijah.

Again: back, pause, push. Elijah pulls away from Orlando's mouth, his eyelids flickering, and he groans loudly.

"Ah … fuck, God. _So much_."

"I love you," Orlando says, hitching his body over and around and into Elijah.

"It's so fucking good, so fucking much," Elijah gasps.

He reaches back, one small hand spread across the sharp curve of Orlando's hipbone. Orlando breathes deeply and evenly, each surge taking his body forwards and then back.

Elijah's breath echoes Orlando's, but less steadily, with ragged edges of sound to each exhalation. Orlando's fingers flex rhythmically on Elijah's shoulder, and at each squeeze Elijah's eyelids flicker a little. Orlando's hips curl back and pause.

"Turn over," he says softly, already drawing Elijah towards him.

Elijah's body flexes into a gentle arch and he moans quietly as Orlando pulls out. Elijah unravels onto his back, letting Orlando gather up the spill of his naked limbs. Orlando pulls Elijah to him, lifting Elijah's thighs around his waist. Elijah locks his ankles in the small of Orlando's back and hitches upwards. Orlando takes hold of his own cock, rubbing himself into the thick smooth smears of honey in the crease of Elijah's behind, and then pushing forwards again. He reaches across, scooping a gleaming handful of honey out of the jar, not caring that it spills in golden threads between his fingers, spinning brightly across Elijah's ribs and his left hip.

"Oh - _fuck_ ," Elijah laughs, when Orlando covers the head of Elijah's cock with his hand.

Orlando soothes his hand on Elijah's skin, his hips gradually taking up the same slow stroke. Elijah stretches lazily, his arms extended above his head, and lets the gentle push of Orlando's cock inside him pace his breathing.

Very gradually Orlando's body tightens, his movements turning more insistent. His hips kick a little, driving against the backs of Elijah's thighs. His rhythm picks up; his breath streams through his nostrils at each thrust. Elijah's fingers flex, clawing the sheets into tangles in his fists. Orlando's hand moves faster on Elijah's cock.

"Oh God," Elijah gasps.

"So good, so good," Orlando says breathlessly, ducking his head to brush his lips across Elijah's cheek.

Elijah writhes, pushing his hands against the hard planes of Orlando's chest.

"Stop. Lie down."

Orlando grins, untangling himself from Elijah. They both stutter a gasp of dismayed pleasure at the rush of sensation as they pull apart. Orlando falls back on the bed, Elijah already crawling over him, straddling him again.

"Love," Orlando manages to say, and then the endearment slides away into a groan of ecstasy as Elijah sinks down onto him again.

Elijah snags the jar and upends it over his hand, letting ribbons of honey run into his palm and onto Orlando's stomach. Orlando laughs, moving under Elijah, feeling the sticky kissing disconnect where a random smudge of honey has glued the inside of Elijah's knee to Orlando's side.

Elijah ditches the empty jar over the side of the bed and uses what's in his hand to cover his own cock. He slides his hand on himself, and grins slyly at Orlando.

Elijah eases himself upwards, his thighs tightening as they take his weight. He tilts his hips, and lets himself drop again. Orlando gasps, his body shuddering, but he holds himself to almost perfect stillness. Elijah lifts again, drops. Again. His skin flushes rose pink across his cheeks and the top of his chest. Orlando's breathing turns quick and shallow. He digs one heel into the bed, lifting his hips under Elijah.

"Yes," Elijah says. " _Yes_."

Orlando grimaces, his hips picking up Elijah's rhythm, jabbing upwards to meet each downward plunge of Elijah's body.

Elijah gasps, his body suddenly losing its beat, losing strength and even coherence. He rocks loosely against Orlando's thrusts. Orlando's hands sear over Elijah's skin, over blood-flush and sweat and smears of gleaming honey, over the softness of Elijah's belly and the taut stretch of his thighs and the quivering tension of his balls drawn up against his groin.

"Oh - _yes_ ," Elijah cries, and his cock pulses in his fist and his come spills into the smooth hollow of Orlando's belly.

Elijah, half-laughing half-sobbing for breath, lets himself unravel onto the bed, Orlando hitching and lifting and curling over him so that they never quite lose the connection between their bodies.

"I can stop," Orlando says breathlessly. "Do you need me to stop?"

"More," Elijah says, shaking his head and grinning. "I need _more_."

He rolls onto his stomach, pushing up onto his hands and knees even as Orlando reaches for him. Orlando shifts, thrusting back into Elijah's body in a single sweet smooth rush. Elijah thrusts back hard, driving a grunt of pleasure from Orlando. Orlando catches Elijah by the hips, pulling him back to meet the next push, and the next after that.

Elijah drops to his elbows, sounding little yelps of greedy ecstatic laughter. Orlando bites his own lower lip, trying different angles and rhythms of thrust.

"Oh God, oh God," Elijah pants, curling his toes and stretching his arms out in front of him until his head is bowed down onto the bed.

"Elijah – Elijah, I'm gonna come," Orlando snaps.

" _Ahh._."

Elijah cries out, his body folding into a sweet shuddering crisis that wracks him from the top of his head through his tail to his toes. Orlando clutches at him, and Elijah can feel the slow deep convulsions rocking Orlando's body, beating through them both like the pulse of the world.

Elijah's breath quivers back into his lungs. Orlando is shaking, his weight slackening down on Elijah heavily enough to drive Elijah down onto his stomach. Orlando pulls aside, falling loosely beside Elijah. Elijah rolls, sighing out exhaustion and exhilaration. They smile at each other.

"Enough?" Elijah asks huskily.

"For now," Orlando smirks.

Cut.

The footpaths in Rin Shi Park glitter wetly in the sudden sunshine. Rainwater drips from the tree branches and beads on bruised flower petals.

Orlando and Elijah walk side-by-side up the steps to the temple enclosure. As they pass the monks sitting cross-legged in the temple doorway, Orlando pauses. He bows deeply, his palms pressed together and his fingertips raised almost to his lips in graceful deference. Most of the monks stare at him in stony indifference, but one or two of the eldest incline their hands in slight gestures of benediction. Orlando straightens again, and moves to the foot of the statue.

Elijah, hanging back a little, glances at the few worshippers. Then, hesitantly, he moves closer to the ledge of prayer offerings. He lifts his right hand, dipping his index and middle fingertips into the rainwater pooling on the dark stone. Subtly, almost furtively, he makes the sign of the cross; he clasps his hands together and bows his head.

Orlando walks slowly past the offerings, here and there reaching out, his fingertips brushing paper or cloth, but he doesn't take anything up. He stops a few feet away from Elijah and watches him for a moment. Then he glances back at the offerings. A piece of bright orange paper, folded and twisted into a rough knot, lies right in front of him.

Orlando reaches out.

He takes the paper off the ledge and opens it out of its folds. He turns it over, frowning.

"Elijah."

Elijah looks over.

"What's that?"

Orlando holds the paper out; Elijah takes it. The handwriting is bold and even.

 _you're not my god. i don't think i believe in god. but i don't believe in what's happening to me either._

 _if there's anyone up there. if there's anyone listening. please._

 _help me._

 _liv._

Elijah looks up at Orlando.

"She could be anyone, anywhere," he scowls.

Orlando takes the edge of the paper, turning it over in Elijah's hand.

"Ex Es," he says, reading the printed logo on the other side. "That's one of those nightclubs on the waterfront, right?"

"Em, yeah," Elijah says. "But they hand out these free pass flyers in bars all over the place. They give them to pretty girls – and then guys pay the cover charge because there's always girls there."

Orlando frowns.

"Hang on," Elijah says, turning the paper over again. "They give a different color flyer to each person who hands them out; that way they can count them in again at the door and they know who's doing a good job. Maybe we can find out who gave this away. Maybe find out what bars they go to."

"Okay, let's do it."

"What?"

"Come on," Orlando says. "Let's just – try to help."

He waits for Elijah's response, his lips wavering into a smile and then into a grin.

"Okay," Elijah says, his expression mirroring Orlando's. "Okay."

"It says it's on Victoria Quay," Orlando says, as they both turn and retrace their steps. "You think there's anyone there now?"

"Sure, somebody might be around," Elijah says, lengthening his stride to keep up with Orlando.

 

The End.


End file.
